For the past seven years, I’ve been living with the specter of cancer. It’s not something that I ever thought I’d be dealing with, but here we are. That also means that each time I go for an annual mammogram, I feel a certain amount of fear and anxiety. That goes with the territory.

Back in 2019, I had gone to the doctor when I was dealing with something completely different. The nurse practitioner mentioned that she had felt a lump in my right breast. Did I know it was there?

Admittedly, at that time I wasn’t keeping up with mammograms as I should have. I was coming off years of dealing with my mother’s dementia, and she had just died a year earlier. I was busy dealing with her estate and monitoring the situation with my dear husband, Tony, who had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2015. It already was a lot.

I did not know about that lump. In fact, throughout the months that followed, I never did feel it. However, that visit led to so many more.

First, I had to get a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound to determine what was going on. Not surprisingly, it was a tumor, and it looked malignant. I’ll admit that I was just a tad sarcastic when the doctor told me. This, I said, was par for the course in my life.

Still, that meant I had to then undergo a biopsy to determine how fast the tumor was growing and help my surgeon figure out how to handle it. This biopsy was done using ultrasound, and a needle was inserted into the tumor to gather a sample. It wasn’t terrible until they hit a spot that wasn’t numbed. I yelped.

At some point, it also was determined that I needed to have some unusual-looking calcifications in my left breast biopsied. That was a different type of biopsy, one that used a large machine that I called “the drill,” since it came down to reach the spot on my breast. It was uncomfortable, but I managed. That sample also found some cancer.

None of the cancer was fast-growing, so I was able to avoid chemotherapy.

Then came the surgery, after other procedures to double-check everything. The surgery wasn’t too bad and the recovery was smooth. I had stage 1 cancer on my right side and stage 0 cancer on my left.

Once I was healed, I had about a month of radiation treatments on my right side, and a few months after that I started on estrogen-suppressing drugs to keep my cancer from coming back.

In those days, the annual mammogram wasn’t too stressful. After all, the doctors had gotten out all my cancer, and I was doing everything I could. Those first couple of years were easy.

Then something completely unexpected happened in 2024. New unusual-looking calcifications were found on my left side, the side that had not had radiation.

I knew something was wrong when I got a call the day after my mammogram that I needed to come in for more testing. It wasn’t the news I wanted.

When I was informed that I’d need another biopsy, I didn’t take it very well. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it was going to require another cancer journey with its multiple procedures, tests and expenses. That, and Tony’s disease had progressed to the point that he wasn’t aware of what was going on with me.

This time, I had to have two surgeries so that my surgeon could be certain that she had removed all the cancer. Again, the cancer that was found was slow growing, though slightly different in that it wasn’t as affected by estrogen. Still, no chemo.

It did require another month of radiation treatments on the left side. I’m told that should my cancer recur, I’m no longer a candidate for radiation.

I also had to stop the cancer drugs I was on from the 2019 cancer battle and start on a new one.

All of this could explain why I was so anxious last year when a new set of unusual-looking calcifications were detected on my right side. Could we really be going through this again?

Happily, it only took one biopsy – another date with “the drill” – to determine that everything was OK.

In the past year, I’ve had to go off that new cancer drug. I’m now not on any medication for cancer.

My annual mammogram this week has made me a little nervous. I suppose that’s natural. Cancer isn’t something to be trifled with, and my track record isn’t exactly stellar.

Still, I’m determined to make sure that if there’s something to find that we find it early. I’m not going down without a fight.

• Joan Oliver is the former Northwest Herald assistant news editor. She has been associated with the Northwest Herald since 1990. She can be reached at jolivercolumn@gmail.com.