My Diary. Part 1. Friends. Mama. It started ...

Hello everyone!

I continue to publish my diary and the history of my illness. My thoughts, feelings and actions. I really hope that these lines will help someone.

You can read the beginning of the diary here:

https://steemit.com/life/@obrenia/my-diary-part-1-farewell-to-my-hair

I have very good friends, my girls. We have known each other for a hundred years and have long since become relatives. I see that they are frightened: we are all about forty. In fact, this is still young ages. It's like the last days of summer, when the grass is still green, and the sun is hot, and life is too beautiful to think that it can end. To think about death. And everything would be so, if not for my story. I opened the door slightly, because of which I felt cold. Grave cold. This cold caught us off guard, us - so alive, carefree and warm, in our blooming happy little world. Old age and illness have not yet prepared us for it. It's scary to my girls, and the more precious is their support.

Mom puts a plate of boiled carrots on the table in front of me.
Me: I do not want to.
Mom: You have to. It's very helpful.
Me: I do not want it. It looks ugly.
Mom, without a pause: You're also ugly. Eat !

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Here it is, motherly love. Selfless and merciless.
Mom moved to my house. She lost weight and looks pretty tired. He sleeps badly, but she does not cry with me. She says that my skull is immaculate, and that I even pretty when bald. However, right after that she adds "you're my child", which makes you doubt the sincerity of her evaluation. Judging by how often she specifies a simple scheme of my treatment (4 "chemistry", surgery, 5 weeks of radiation, 4 "chemistry"), her brain stubbornly refuses to recognize the reality of what is happening. She asks the same questions again and again, as if hoping that in the end I will say that I was joking that I do not need anything to be treated, I am healthy, and I plan a vacation at the sea or going to the theater. My poor, poor woman... No jokes...

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The Russian patient is wary and well-read. He has several sources of information. His trust in the doctor's words is inversely proportional to the degree of confidence in the speaker's tone.
If I knew these simple rules in the summer, I would not be in the current situation. A strict elderly doctor, MD, spent five months observing my rapidly growing tumor. For this time I have made three ultrasound exams, one mammography and one puncture. I went to a paid clinic to the doctor more often than to my mother. I was worried, but relied on the knowledge and experience of the doctor. I relied till her call after the second puncture, she reported that I, apparently, have cancer, but they will recheck. The call was on Friday. They have to double-check before Tuesday.
This weekend has become one of the most cognitive periods of my life. I read everything I've reached on the Internet, from forums to dissertations. I was stunned and angry, very angry at myself. Lord, why did not I do this before? I would learn about the existence of MRI with contrast. Or would check the blood for cancer markers. Or would go to another doctor. And everything would have been different. But I did not read, did not recognize, did not check and did not go. I showed criminal negligence in relation to myself, my beloved, and I will be severely punished for it.

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I came to the clinic on Tuesday with this thought. The doctor spoke kindly to me, as if I were a child. It was a bad sign.
"Yes, we rechecked. Yes, it is confirmed. Yes, it seems that the cyst has reborn. Let's look at you again now. "
I was examined, made another mammogram, ultrasound, and even collected a small consultation. Three ladies in white coats were carefully examining the image on the screen. And again all were affectionate: "Yes, it seems, only the" former "cyst. No, the lymph nodes are not affected. No, we do not see metastases." Exactly one day later a tired doctor in the 62nd hospital found an enlarged lymph node immediately. A day later, ultrasound in the oncology center showed that there are several such nodes. What three white-haired people were looking at a paid clinic, I still do not understand.

But before the 62nd hospital, while I, cringing internally, tried to delve into the meaning of the words the doctor uttered. Sense came with difficulty. There was only one thought in my head - it must be the earliest stage. I did everything I needed - I went to the hospital on time, followed all the instructions. So the doctors said that there is only a degenerated cyst, it is conveniently localized, and that nothing further has gone. Thought consoled a little. I repeated it again and again, sitting on the edge of the chair in the clinic and later, on the way to the door. Against the background of this thought, the farewell words of the doctor, already told to me in the back, sounded unexpectedly: "They will offer a mastectomy - you should agree." It was a blow...

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Then, about the full removal of the breast I heard repeatedly and from the most unsuitable for such advice people. Even my ex-physician-gastroenterologist, called my friend to convince me to do a mastectomy. A nice woman in the women's consultation, in which I did ultrasound of the pelvic organs, listed all the known cases of death from breast cancer and decided not to describe in conclusion my fibroids: "For what? After all, doctors will cut everything out there."
Why do doctors not specializing in oncology consider it possible to discuss my treatment and promise me the most radical variants of it, I do not know, but their benevolent pessimism became the second plus in favor of treatment not in Russia.

The first plus was provided by a strict doctor of medical sciences from a paid clinic, who observed me for five months. This plus manifested itself after my last visit to her, when doctors from the 62nd hospital literally found invisible lymph nodes invisible to her and her ultrasound machine, and then reported the diagnosis - stage 2b, triple negative, Ki-67 about 80%.
I did not wait for the third plus. For the endless three weeks that have passed between the call of the "paid" doctor and the diagnosis of the results of the biopsy, I read a lot and talked to many people. I got a folder with records and documents, in colored bookmarks, at the sight of which the doctors began to get nervous and irritated. I became collected, cautious and insinuating. And although the doctor from the 62nd did nothing wrong to me and did not threaten a mastectomy, I decided to fly abroad. I no longer believed in our medicine. I was scared in it.