October 9th

Today Is October 8th and I’m excited; a friend of mine is coming into town to see me. Well, here she is:

So those in my family who need to know, know. October 9th finally rolls around. Today I’m meeting with my medical team, and I have my squad with me. Featured are my cousin Christian, my mom’s sister Aunty Maggie Fonge and my friend Victoria who was visiting me from Paris. She made a trip out the night before to attend this appointment with me and today, we were all seated in the waiting room of the cancer center, waiting for my name to be called.

“Nu-Ma-bia New?” A lady in blue scrubs attempts to call my name out.
I look at my cousin, my friend, and my aunt and we burst out laughing. The thing is, my full African name is: Ngumabih Ngu, pronounced “N-goo-ma-bee N-goo”. But as luck would have it, most people have a hard time with the consonants so it’s a little tricky at first. I walk up to the lady and say hello, and she apologizes immediately for mispronouncing my name. We shake her hand and put her at ease. In the patient’s room, I am eager to meet my team and to find out what is going on with me.

In walks a doctor. Then another one. Then one more. I am looking at the crowd of physicians in white coats coming in for this appointment and thinking to myself, gosh! I must really have it bad.

My oncologist is a petite man with a strong grip, glasses, and a friendly face. He immediately introduces himself and lets me know what the plan for the day will be. He introduces me to the multidisciplinary team: the Surgeon, the Radiologist, the Physical therapist, the Nutritionist, the Symptom Management PA, the Nurse Navigators…  etc, etc. In fact, the entire team. They all take turns in shaking my hands. Then they leave the room, each with the intention of coming back to individually talk to me, and then my oncologist starts to talk to me. His scribe is behind him, typing every single word he says.

“Ms. Ngu,” he says, “You have a Grade 3, Stage 2B Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. And your estrogen and progesterone receptors are positive.”

As someone who has been in the medical field, I am cognizant of what it is he is saying, but he goes further to explain it to the rest of my family. “At first, you were determined to be a Stage 3, but with no lymph node activity as per your last biopsy, we have determined that you are a stage 2B.”

He talks about my treatment plan, including chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. He also talks about the possibility of taking Chemotherapy pills -such as Tamoxifen. He discusses the option of childbirth in the future, especially as a younger patient and with the cancer feeding off my Estrogen and Progesterone. We all listen to him attentively and ask questions about concerns we have, and about the journey ahead of me and what to expect. Then the surgeon walks in and talks to us and one by one, each physician comes in and leaves. I must have been there for almost 5 hours that day. Exhausted, we all go home, finally having some idea of how we were going to approach my condition. At the house, I inform my parents and all we could do was pray.

The next few days are a whirlwind as I inform all of my closest friends and family. Every day seemed to be one test or another as I was in the hospital all the time. It was either for bloodwork, the collection of samples from me, tests of one type or another, etc, etc. My physician asked for my permission to be enrolled in a study with the National Cancer Institute. Apparently, my type of cancer was very aggressive for my age and the demographic and data they collected from me could help with research for other women in the future. I was more than happy to oblige.

My genetic tests came in that week and I was very nervous because my maternal grandmother past away from Cancer, and my aunt, my mom’s youngest sibling also past away from Cancer. I was worried that I had the Breast Cancer Gene (BRCA). For several nights, I did not sleep. Finally, the genetic counselor calls me in with the results of my test. She said so many positive things and for the first time in a long time, all I could think was:

Turns out, I do NOT have the BRCA gene. I am just one of many women who are predisposed to cancer. My strain happens to be very aggressive, but again it is treatable. I could deal with treatable. I was okay with that. Do you know how they say no news is good news? Well, this time, this news was actually great considering the alternative.

In addition, I had bone scans all of that week to ensure that there were no other tumors hiding in little nooks and crevices inside my body. Again, the doctor cleared me on that.

Nothing had shown up on my bone scans, and body scans. If indeed the tumor was localized to just my left breast then to hell with it! Oops! Sorry about that! 🙂 My point is, I can deal with losing a breast. I don’t know if I can say the same about my life! I want to be around, I have a lot of work still left to do… and a wonderful little boy who is looking up to me.  I want to live! I am going to live.

Have you ever heard of that saying, “God gives his toughest wars to his strongest soldiers?” Well, let’s just put it this way. I was going to fight and I had no plans of surrendering.

By the time all the preliminary medical procedures were done, I realized that it was October 16th. My birthday was four days away. I asked my doctor if I could take a little vacation, just to get some air before I started treatment officially on October 30th. He was ok with it. With his approval, I started making travel arrangements. Remember when I told you in this post that I would tell you why I took the trip to Santorini? Well, now you know! With my birthday four days away, my greatest wish was for God to grant me a new lease on life and divine healing -mentally, emotionally and most especially, physically.

Meanwhile, my family had plans of their own… Plans I knew nothing of!
To find out what these sneaky plans were, check out my next post by clicking here.

Not sure at what point of my journey you’re on? Be sure to check out The Contents Page.