I was lucky. I was going through a breakup, about to turn 40, and knew about the lump in my breast, but had had too much on my plate to deal with it. While at a friend's place, I leaned down and accidentally flashed her, but instead of laughing, she blanched. What she saw was a classic orange peel presentation, and because I'd palpated the lump so much, bruising. She went with me to the first doctor who wanted to remove the whole breast. I freaked and said I'd go bankrupt paying out of pocket before I let a sloppy butcher near me with a scalpel. I'm glad I went for that second opinion. Through luck or chance, I found Dr. Deborah Axelrod at NYU Langone Cancer Care Center, and she wanted to do more en suite surgeries like mine. With Stage II(b) breast cancer, she and her assistants took out the equivalent of a kielbasa shaped tumor through a 2" incision. She even was able to leave my lymph nodes past the initial margin alone. I am lucky to have found such a skilled surgeon who acted quickly and with great confidence. I am lucky I got to keep my breast, and that now I call it Denty, due to the divot that healed over (visible in the photo). I'm even lucky that due to the size of my breasts to start, the fluid levels just kind of replaced the space the tumor had taken up, so it's just slightly smaller than my right breast. The right breast is called Loosy because she's not Tighty.

~Cabiria's Eden Miller, in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month


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