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I was waiting for breast biopsy results when a friend texted me two words

I was waiting for breast biopsy results when a friend texted me two words

“I will love you forever,” I said as I put my 5-year-old daughter into bed.

“Even after you die?” he said, his blue eyes wide.

The question almost took my breath away.

“Yes,” I stammered. “Always.”

Unbeknownst to my daughter, she was waiting to find out if she had breast cancer. At age 45, I was one of millions of women who were recently recommended to start screening at a younger age due to the rapid increase in diagnoses in women under 50 years of age, especially since I have dense breast tissue and family history of the disease, all of which increase my risk.

“Stay positive!” Those are the two words a longtime friend texted me when I told her something suspicious had appeared on my breast MRI and required a biopsy. While he agreed in theory that there was no reason to worry when it could be nothing, not worrying was another matter. I knew that more detection leads to earlier detection and more false positives, and yet the high probability of a false positive didn’t change the fact that I was terrified. And the more afraid I felt, the more I tried to replace my fear with optimism.

As the daughter of a psychologist and author who writes about mental health, I was familiar with the research showing optimism can improve our health, longevity and happiness. I also knew the importance of recognizing feelings like pain and fear. The trick is knowing when to use which approach, and embracing darkness and discomfort is easy to ignore in a society that values ​​smiling faces, smiley face emojis, and conversations riddled with superlatives like “awesome!” and “amazing!”

I had acted indifferent when a breast care coordinator called me and introduced herself as Hope. The ironically named Hope explained that because of the type of irregularity in the scan, she would need a special biopsy that is performed during an MRI. I scheduled an appointment for the following week and tried not to think about it as I drove to my daughter’s Christmas party at kindergarten.

My breath caught as I parked, but I told myself there was no point in freaking out when it probably wasn’t cancer, and even if it was, we’d catch it early. However, as I watched my daughter decorate cookies, the possibility of having an illness with the potential to separate me from my children took my breath away. it’s probably nothingI thought as I opened a jar of red frosting for my daughter. But what if it is something?

The author's children at a school party.
The author’s children at a school party.

Courtesy of Megan Feldman Bettencourt

Until I became a mother, death was low on my list of fears, somewhere underneath, speaking to a crowd and being dazzled by the unexpected presence of Jude Law. I skied off-limits, rented an apartment alone in a foreign capital with one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and interviewed human traffickers on train tracks in rural Mexico. However, once my son was born, I was terrified to board a plane to anywhere. Every time I left to attend a speech out of town, I spent the flight praying that I wouldn’t fall out of the sky.

The fear had dissipated over the years, but the “suspicious” MRI brought it back like a tsunami. stay positiveI said to myself. My brain had other ideas. I remembered the young woman I once wrote about named Nicole, who died of breast cancer when her daughter was 3 years old. Remembering the black patent leather shoes Nicole’s little girl wore at her funeral, I choked back tears as I hugged my daughter and walked to my car.

Stay positive! The rallying cry echoed in my head as I attended my office Christmas party. But what if this is my last Christmas season? The screaming in my head and the tightness in my chest drowned out any conversation I attempted at the cheese table, so I ran to a cubicle and called Hope, the breast care coordinator, to see if I could get the biopsy done sooner. Suddenly a week seemed like a year. Hope didn’t answer, so I called again. And again. During that whole joyful office party, I snuck out to stalk Hope like a jilted lover.

That night, as I lay in bed next to my sleeping husband, I realized the message Stay Positive! The battle flag was useless against the fear of the tsunami. Plus, I was going crazy. I almost cut my index finger while making salad for dinner and didn’t hear a word my kids said at the table because of the argument in my head.

I looked out the window at the stars shining in the inky black night and thought about swimming in the ocean. As a child in the landlocked Southwest, I would try to escape the waves or hold my ground against them as they crashed onto the beach. This caused me to be tossed around like a rag doll in the whirlpool until I was thrown onto the wet sand. Instead, I learned to dive headfirst into the waves. That’s what I had to do now, I realized.

I crept into the bathroom and cried. I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like if I had cancer and had to receive treatment while working and being a mother, as so many women do. I thought of Nicole. I thought about my friend Catherine, who had lost her mother to ovarian cancer and then survived breast cancer while pregnant in her 30s.

Despite crying myself to sleep, I woke up refreshed. Through my window was the pinkest sunrise I had ever seen. That afternoon, I enjoyed watching my husband and son fly a drone outside, the soft hum of its takeoff mixing with the chirping of birds. I felt so much joy when my daughter hugged me that I thought I could float in the air too.

Why might I more fully inhabit these moments after tearfully bathing on the bathroom floor? Maybe it was because the saying “what you resist persists” is true. Maybe it was because fear was love. I wouldn’t have one without the other, and by suppressing my fear I was also suppressing my love. Allowing myself to feel both brought me a greater sense of being alive and a wave of gratitude for everything I had.

The next time I looked at my calendar and saw the biopsy appointment, I resisted the urge to scold myself for the jolt it sent to my system or tell myself to calm down. Instead, I cried in the dark steam room of the gym. I remembered the Buddhist saying I had read aloud at Nicole’s funeral: “If death is certain but the time of death is uncertain, what is most important?” My fear of death helped me realize that, for me, the most important thing was to be here for life, for the entire roller coaster. Drink in the magnificence and attend carefully to the suffering. Geese in formation. My husband’s smile. Hugging my children when they cried and turning to my own pain and fear with compassion.

The author on a ski day with her family.
The author on a ski day with her family.

Courtesy of Megan Feldman Bettencourt

When the day of the biopsy came, my husband took me to the clinic and the procedure seemed like a dream since I had requested Xanax. After sleeping for several hours, I took my daughter to the flower section of the supermarket and watched her run from one bouquet to the next, enraptured as she smelled each flower. “They are so beautiful,” she said, holding up a purple orchid. “But they are also sad because they wither and then disappear.”

I hope the breast care coordinator called the day before Christmas. The abnormality on the MRI had a complicated name that amounted to “normal breast changes.” After all, I wasn’t dying. I would need another MRI in six months and then resume my alternating biannual exams. I felt relieved, but also acutely aware that I would face the prospect of another cancer scare every six months for the rest of my life.

Instead of pretending that it didn’t scare me, I decided to recognize my fear as part of my love and let it be. Because I was sitting in the cave of my fear, not replacing it with false joy, that brought me clarity and presence. Just as fear is part of love, mortality is part of life, and that impermanence imbues the present moment with magical power.

Six months after the biopsy, I went to my next MRI and took a deep breath, because protecting myself from death and striving to make peace with it also seemed like two of the most important things.

Megan Feldman Bettencourt is the author of “Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World” (Penguin), which explores forgiveness through science, stories, and memoirs. She has reported as a journalist in nine states and six countries and her writing has appeared in publications such as Psychology Today, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, Business Insider, Harper’s BAZAAR, and 5280: The Denver Magazine. As a keynote speaker and TEDx Boulder alumna, Megan shares how forgiveness can improve individual and collective well-being. Through his company ClearLine Consulting, he offers media relations support; public speaking and presentation training; employee engagement programs and personalized training. Visit her at meganfeldman.com.

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