First is the Ultrasound

Monday, May 2nd, 2011.

I put an hour’s worth of coins in the Ruskin Street meter. I intend to return to the car after the ultrasound.

The ultrasound tech, Marijana, with her Yugoslavian charm, is professional and cheery, but still the room is heavy with our silent alarm.

The plum-sized tumour appears apple-sized in the small screen. I study the main tumor and two small satellite tumours while she measures them. They are black like inkblots. I comment that one of them appears to be in my armpit.

“Is that a tumour in my lymph nodes?” I ask. She confirms.

She fetches the beautiful radiologist, Dr. Seely, whose radiant, made-up face hovers above me within a minute of reading my ultrasound. She is telling me I must have a mammogram immediately. 

Before that Dr. Seely wants to rule out the highly desirable alternative that I’d deluded myself into believing for my right breast: the harmless, round, liquid-filled tumour. 

“Well you saw the rough edges,” I say. 

I'd forced my husband, the night before, to read to me the descriptions of various types of breast lumps from the computer next to the bed where he had been reading about stocks and bonds. 

We have always had the tradition of his reading aloud to me, whatever book he is reading in order to get to sleep. I only ask him to do this when I am feeling insecure or nervous. When Kitty and Basil, my cats who died late last year, were alive, we had the tradition of his telling me stories aloud in bed, which he made up as he went along.

My eldest sister, Elizabeth, thirteen years older than me, used to sing to me before I slept, as a kid. I loved that Dave could make up stories so easily, and tell me these in bed in the dark. They always involved our dogs heroically rescuing our cats in some enchanted forest. I loved these stories. Now I wanted him to tell me about things somewhat scarier.

I listened to him reading the descriptions and decided mine was the round, liquid-filled, non-cancerous type of lump. You just pierce it and the liquid drains. No need for surgery. After all, you could feel the round sack in my breast, its edges smooth and firm.

The lovely radiologist wants to do a procedure in order to have it recorded that it was done. It will rule out the idea of the liquid tumour with smooth edges.

She performs a Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) in which a very small needle is inserted into the breast and individual cells or fluid is removed. She freezes the skin first. No biggie.

She now wants a mammogram. Stat. This time I do not fight the dreaded mammo. This one knows what she is doing. 

“The mammo won’t smash the tumors accidentally, will it?” I ask. “Oh no, believe me, they do it very gently here, after knowing the tumours are in there.”

I am led to the waiting area and in two minutes the mammogram tech appears with a student  by her side. We walk the ten feet to the mammogram room.

She asks if the student might feel my breast. I am still in shock so I am amenable. They read the results and hover together in whispering, pointing collusion over in the corner. 

The beautiful radiologist is fetched again and I am asked to again wait in the waiting area. I pass the three of them now, hunched and whispering, and out pops the radiologist. She pulls me a seat further away from the other waiting women. 

“There is calcification in the tumours so this is quite worrisome,” she says. 

I feel a specialness, I am sort of proud to have given them some kind of interesting work today. It must be so boring to look at pictures of breasts without cancer. I am strangely unworried.


The beautiful radiologist pulls me into the lab room and hands me a pen and a paper.

“We have a pilot program here at the Breast Health Centre,” she is saying. “It is called Rapid Assessment Program, or RAP, and you will be the twelfth woman to join the program. We will be assigning you your own nurse who will coordinate your appointments with you.” I sign without reading.

Next thing I am led to is a small, cheerful, corner conference room where lovely Antonella, my RAP nurse is explaining that normally an appointment for an MRI can take weeks to materialize, but in my case it will be “very soon.” She has already booked me a biopsy for tomorrow morning at 8:30. My MRI will be the day after.

I’m a bit dazed, but less for the fact I obviously have metastacized cancer, having seen the lymph node tumour myself on the ultrasound screen, than the fact I am enjoying American style, personalized medical care, like Suzanne Somers got when she had breast cancer. Is this the same city in which having one’s own family doctor is a rare and special situation to be in?

I leave the clinic and walk to my car. A ticket is being placed on my windshield. 

“Excuse me!” I run to the meter man. “I was told I was just having an ultrasound so I only put in an hour’s worth of coins, you see, but it turns out that I have cancer so they kept me for two more procedures!” 

There. It is out of my mouth. Am I exaggerating? Am I lying to this meter man? I don’t know.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says. “I can’t unwrite it. But you can look up online where to go and argue this, and they might let you off without paying it. Really sorry, ma’am.” He is so nice i don’t mind.

Amazingly, there is a two hour limit on this three-bucks-an-hour street parking. The beautiful houses that line this residential area normally don’t require paid street parking. It is obvious the paid parking area is for those being put through medical procedures, either at the Heart Institute or the Breast Cancer building. Strange that the city wants to profit from the hardships of people.

I drive home in a daze. Dave will be pissed at the ticket.

I stand on the back deck as he steps up from the driveway. We hug. I tell him what I think I have. The dogs try to join us in the hug.

“Think positive,” he says. “Let them finish their testing before you conclude anything.”


But I am positive. I am positive I have metastacized breast cancer.