Dionna Koval:
Before I was diagnosed, I was in the middle of a divorce, but I wasn't worried about anything really. I was worried about what Diego had that day and if he had baseball practice, how long I had to work for that day. It was just normal, everyday stuff that I would worry about. It's something that I feel like I took for granted, because the worries I had then are nothing compared to what they are now.
Well, I knew my grandmother passed away from breast cancer. She was 51 when she passed away. In the back of your head, you always have that, "Oh, family relative." But I was always told, because she's my paternal grandmother, I wouldn't have any worries. It wasn’t hereditary, okay? I would go for my mammograms. Once I hit 40, I knew I had to start going. That was the odd thing, is that I went at the end of September, beginning of October of 2013, and nothing came up. By 2014, April of 2014, I was already stage IV. It just drives me nuts. How was it missed? Did it grow that fast? How did it all happen? When I did the BRCA gene test, I don't even have the gene. That made me crazy as well, because it's like how did I get this? How?
The Process of Coming to Terms With a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Dionna Koval:
In the beginning, I've always thought back to that time, always questioning and always wondering who made that mistake, where did it come from, but as time goes on and I live with this daily, I don't even let it faze me. It's just something that I need to get through. In order for me to get through my daily routine, my goals, my personal goals, I need to forget about that.
It took me a very long time to accept it. Especially being told that when you're stage IV you can't do anything. I couldn't accept that. It took a lot of therapy and it took a lot of talking to my mom, because I was pissed. I didn't understand, what do you mean, just because I'm stage IV you can't take this out of me, and I've got to live with it even longer?
I would say it took a couple of years and then I finally started trusting my oncologist and I was able to deal with it. But prior to that, when she told me, "No," the surgeon told me, "No, you're just going to start treatment." And then I met the oncologist, and she was like, "Oh no, you can't do anything." I thought they didn't know what they were doing, but I've come to understand that it wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was just a protocol at the time of how they handle stage IV breast cancer.
