My New Oncologist

OK, I’ve been around, I know the drill. It’s usually done when I first enter the room - but there have been times when I was already prone, ready and waiting. Sometimes I manage to sit for a while, talk for a bit, but the end, I get up and remove my top and bra. I move over to the bed, lie down and raise my arms above my head. My breasts, both of them, are then prodded, poked, pounded and pummeled and - not to be too P-centrically alliterative - jabbed, joggled and jiggled. The whole routine is then repeated with me in a sitting position. Then the prodder who did the jiggling smiles and says, OK, everything’s OK and I get dressed again.

I’m not sure what they expect to find. It was only a short while ago that the cancerous lump was removed from one such breast. Do they expect it to come back for a return visit?

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It's Thursday, July 12, and before keeping my appointment with Dr. Sarid, I met Liora the social worker. Since discovering the lump in what seems like eons ago, my life has been dominated by operations and waiting, usually tensely, for the results of various tests. Now all the labs are in, and the final piece in the jigsaw of my cancer is in place; there is no more action, just the reality of a dividing line between my life before cancer and my life after cancer. There are times when this realization plays havoc with my sense of well-being.

I want, I told Liora, a psychologist. I want to be able to pour out my emotional meanderings and find my way back to equilibrium. (Note: Even with access to a dictionary, there was no way I would be able to express that sentence in Hebrew. What I actually said was far more mundane, a linguistic compromise, if you will, but the message was the same.) Liora asked me if I had lost my appetite (no, if only!) and if I had sleeping problems, either oversleeping or under-sleeping (again no, so long as she didn’t count losing consciousness for about 20 minutes every evening in front of the TV as oversleeping). She concluded that I was not depressed, but that I was sad. That was a relief, because for a moment I was afraid that I would be denied a psychologist if I were judged insufficiently miserable.

I also asked her for access to a dietician or nutritionist because I am very, no extremely confused about what to eat and what not to eat. Tofu, for example - who hasn’t felt noble at eating tofu? They are now telling us that the phytoestrogens in tofu, instead of being beneficial, could well be a contributory factor to breast cancer. Furthermore, last week on Channel 10, there was a report on green, leafy vegetables, such as petrosilia (parsley) and cusbara (coriandar) - those we’re exhorted to eat for good health and to keep cancer at bay - and how they are saturated in carcinogenic substances. As if that weren’t enough, Liora told me that she attended a lecture where the role of organically grown produce in promoting health was impugned. Apparently, the very substance which destroys worms and other produce gnawing mites could be injurious to our health. The nutritionists themselves are very confused, said Liora. However, one concept that appears to be more or less universally acknowledged is that cancer cells love sugar: (http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20070710/meat-sweets-boost-breast-cancer-risk). I don’t envisage cutting down on my sugar intake as a major hardship.

I got off to a rather shaky start with Dr. Sarid when he asked for my test results and I had nothing to give him. Nachum and I had gone to his secretary’s booth to confirm the time of the appointment but she wasn’t there and after waiting for about five minutes, we left because I was afraid we were late. I was dismayed and began to protest that I had no idea why he didn’t have my test results, that I wasn’t responsible for or even cognisant of administrative practices in the hospital. He calmed me down, told me that he was happy to tend to me because I was the mother of a colleague and that I should remember to bring all the documents next time. He also told me that if I continue to respond to him in that way, he'd be afraid to say anything to me, so I shut up. There was an element of warmth in him which had been lacking in Dr. F that I found compelling. I left his room feeling satisfied with my team of health care specialists.

I begin radiation treatment on July 22 at 3.55. There will be 33 treatments in all, every day, five days a week. I can expect to feel fatigued and weak as the treatments progress. On the way out of the hospital, I popped in to Steimatzky's and bought three books.

Friday, morning shower: After my breasts have been poked, pummeled and joggled, and have received a clean bill of health, I have no qualms applying moisturizing lotion to my body. I reckon if the doctors are satisfied, the possibility that I might chance on something untoward is pretty low. During intervals between breast jiggling, I tend to be reluctant to use the lotion because that is what triggered this whole drama - and there are some places I do not want to revisit.