Breaking Up With My Marriage and My Boobs

Nothing Sweet About the Sorrow

The doctor told me the tumor in my breast was “slow and lazy”. This was the silver lining in the devastating diagnosis. But what exactly did this mean?

In my case, the tumor started approximately 9 years earlier. While I had lapsed getting regular mammograms, I’m pretty sure that its genesis went unnoticed. And besides, breast cancer only happens to other women, right?

Slowly and then suddenly, as they say. The mammogram last July was suspicious and the doctor suggested a follow up in 6 months. The doc seemed nonchalant when he told me, “I could stick a needle in it” to evaluate.

I figured if he wasn’t too concerned, I wouldn’t be too concerned. But that’s a lie. I WAS concerned.

It wasn’t the first time I had alarm bells go off. Having had dense breast tissue, I had had ultrasound follow up to mammograms in years past. They (yawn) were fine.

I tried to comfort myself and not lose my shit. It was probably nothing. Most lumps are benign, I told myself.

After 5 months, something didn’t feel right. I went back in for another look/see. A diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound. The diagnostic mammogram is different from a screening mammogram in that they focus on the suspicious area. Read: Your boobs will be pulled, stretched, and smooshed in ways you never dreamed possible.

I am waiting in the room for the doctor. I am crazy scared. Usually, they finish up their study and then send you to the waiting room while you wait for the radiologist to look at the images.

“Wait here,” the lady said. My spidy senses more than tingled.

After a brief wait, the doctor appeared. His face was very sober. Oh, shit, I thought.

“The lump hasn’t changed much but the blood supply has picked up.”

Shit, shit, SHIT. I knew what that meant. And thus began my breast cancer nightmare.

While this was going on, I was separated from my husband of 32 years. I communicated with him via text while this drama unfolded, but his replies reflected the distance between us. Besides the terror of the diagnostic proceedings, this brought another “oh shit” reverberating in my soul. There was still a part of me that was still hoping we could salvage our marriage, but his response, or rather lack of it, gave me a reality check.

Thankfully, my sister lives close by and held my hand through the testing and biopsies.

Talk about your life being upended.

I reflect on the stress fractures in our marriage. Yup. Probably about nine years earlier is when they started showing up. Cancer cells in my body and malignancy in my marriage. They both started growing under the radar.

I was in denial over the state of my marriage and kept adjusting my tolerances in order to keep the peace. Or rather, a misguided attempt to hold things together. Oh, the amount of shit I tolerated. And I was also busy stuffing down my sense of unhappiness. The implications of that were just too devastating to consider.

The stress this created, I am certain, contributed to the tumor growing.

Like the “wait and see” approach with the mammogram, I was doing it with my marriage. Surely things will get better. Even though the evidence was indicated this was nothing but magical thinking on my part. Even after a marriage therapist did the emotional equivalent of a mammogram. I think she, too, had hoped the apparent malignancies weren’t malignant.

Not going to shit talk my was-band. But the choices he made brought a level of grief I never thought possible. Gutted is not strong enough of a word.

I filed for divorce after almost a year of separation. A small part of me had even hoped he would have an epiphany about how wonderful I was and how he’d like to stay married to me, etc, etc.

Nope.

Finalization happened in November 2021. I got the cancer diagnosis January 6, 2022.

The chickens had come home to roost.

Now I am nearly one year from being officially single again. 2023 will provide plenty of sad anniversary dates: cancer diagnosis, mastectomy, chemo and finally, chemo completion.

The real work begins now. The scars both on my chest and in my chest-my heart tell me I am stronger than I ever thought possible.

Divorce and cancer. Two things I never thought I would experience. All inside of one year.

It’s time to move forward. To choose love and forgiveness. To learn how to give myself the honor I deserve and vow to never allow myself to remain in a relationship that’s gone toxic. (God, I almost hate using the word “toxic” because I feel like we overuse it to where it means little.)

Onward and upward!

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