Most days, I’m experiencing motherhood as a survivor but on this day in 2022, my first scan postpartum, I was navigating survivorhood as a mother.
I’ve always felt my fair share of “scanxiety” leading up to my breast MRIs every six months. But the emotional weight of these twice-yearly scans were heavier this time around for a host of reasons, chief among them the creeping fear of a recurrence now that I had Myles – feels like so much more is at stake now. I had also been on a tamoxifen break since Jan 2021. It was a nice respite from the laundry list of side effects but I definitely felt unprotected and vulnerable each day I was off the drug.
So, when the results of the mammogram took longer than normal to come back and I was called back for additional imaging, my anxiety peaked and I began amping myself up for a hit of bad news. “What? This hasn’t happened before. Did they see something? Okay breathe. You can do this. You’ve done this before. You can do this again. You will do this again. You have to do this again. Myles…”
Scan days suck. Plain and simple. And like any Breastie will tell you, moments like these are all too familiar. We get stuck in conflicting states of “Meditative Breathing” and “Brace for Impact”. Before going into my scans, I reread some of the words of encouragement that were sent to me by friends and family members who knew this day was going to be hard for me. I looked at pictures of my wonderful husband and smiling baby boy. These things all centered me and drowned out a lot of the nerves that had built up over the past few days. And when they pierced the surface again in that waiting room, the Survivor Mama inner voice came through to play her part, too.
This wasn’t the first time I felt this way and it certainly won’t be the last. But no matter what my results are, how I feel, or which part of my identity rises to meet the occasion, I know my strength (both as a mother and as a survivor) is bolstered by the love of the people around me. And I am eternally grateful for both.
