Stories
The Fear of Regret
Kara McGuirk-Allison
9/30/17
They kept telling me I was lucky. “You’re sooooo lucky the tumor is small.”
“You’re sooooo lucky you caught it early.” I corrected one doctor “No, lucky would be not having cancer at all.”
In hindsight, the docs were right. Catching breast cancer early gives you plenty more options for treatment, and sometimes significantly better outcomes. It also gave me the power to choose my path of treatment. With a stage 1 tumor of only 9mm, it was suggested I have a lumpectomy and radiation. A relatively simple surgery followed by a month of radiation sounded appealing.
I began asking questions of various doctors, and interviewing women who had already gone through this decision making process. I needed to know if having a mastectomy would reduce my risk of the cancer coming back; if the radiation was safe since I already had a minor heart valve problem, if having a double mastectomy would keep the cancer from invading the other breast. I point blank asked doctors and nurses what they would do if they were me, if I was their wife, or sister, or daughter. They all refused to answer the question. “Every woman is different, and feels differently about their breasts,” they said. At this point in my life, I didn’t feel anything about my breasts, but I did have strong feelings about the cancer.
When you’re in a family with historical breast cancer, you start having mammograms early. I had my first one at age 30. To me breast cancer seemed like a “when not if” scenario and I needed to be proactive and prepared. Yet here I was at 43, not having a clue what I wanted to do. Most women I interviewed with a family history were quite certain that if cancer appeared at any stage, even non invasive stage 0, they would remove both breasts. I wished I had such a strong conviction and certainty about the right path to take.
I flip flopped back and forth…racing from the lumpectomy to double mastectomy in a matter of hours. I was waiting for clarity, for a moment of calm. I agonized over making the right decision. It was a kind of emotional torture akin to psychological warfare. Ok maybe that’s taking it a little too far, but it was agony. Until one evening, I was sitting on the couch making a pro/con list. I scratched these words into my notebook “The Fear of Regret.”
Regret theory is taking into account how you will feel if you make the wrong decision. It applies to major and minor decision making.
A couple might push to purchase their first home because the interest rates are low. They might anticipate a hike in rates and a worse time to buy.
A young woman might freeze her eggs for later pregnancy. She’s pursuing a career and doesn’t feel it’s the right time for a family.
A sober alcoholic is tempted to drink at a celebratory function. That one drink could undo years of hard work.
You see where I’m going with this. The fear of regretting a decision or choice is a motivator in making that decision.
If years from now the cancer comes back, I want to be able to look at my son and husband, and tell them I did everything I could. And as I stared at those three words on my notebook, I was clear what I had to do.
After the double mastectomy, my husband and I met with the oncologist. This whole process just seems backwards to me. I wanted to meet with an oncologist FIRST to explain breast cancer, and specifically what markers in my biopsy meant. They won’t talk to you until after surgery so they can examine the new results on the sample removed.
No one in this process had ever mentioned chemotherapy. Remember, I was supposed to be sooooo lucky? That is until a standard genome test revealed a mid-range score.
Oncologists say that if you score a 25 or above you do some chemo to kill off any remaining cells. Anything below 18 and you’re in the clear. I scored a 22. The middle ground where only one study has been done on the effects chemo might have on returning cancer...but the results of that study were not yet available.
The middle ground where the oncologist looks at you and your husband and says “so YOU can decide if you want to do chemo or not.”
My husband looked right at the doctor and said “I feel highly unqualified to make the decision” and I yelled “no one WANTS to do chemo!!” Just when I thought the big, agonizing decision- making had come to an end, we were presented with one more challenge: a medicine that could knock my risk of recurrence down a few percentage points, but could also leave me with long-term health problems.
After one more genome test definitively placed me in the high-risk category, the decision became clear. Again the fear of regret came into play. I had to do everything I could do kill this cancer, and I was going to fry it with chemo.
Kara McGuirk-Allison
9/30/17
They kept telling me I was lucky. “You’re sooooo lucky the tumor is small.”
“You’re sooooo lucky you caught it early.” I corrected one doctor “No, lucky would be not having cancer at all.”
In hindsight, the docs were right. Catching breast cancer early gives you plenty more options for treatment, and sometimes significantly better outcomes. It also gave me the power to choose my path of treatment. With a stage 1 tumor of only 9mm, it was suggested I have a lumpectomy and radiation. A relatively simple surgery followed by a month of radiation sounded appealing.
I began asking questions of various doctors, and interviewing women who had already gone through this decision making process. I needed to know if having a mastectomy would reduce my risk of the cancer coming back; if the radiation was safe since I already had a minor heart valve problem, if having a double mastectomy would keep the cancer from invading the other breast. I point blank asked doctors and nurses what they would do if they were me, if I was their wife, or sister, or daughter. They all refused to answer the question. “Every woman is different, and feels differently about their breasts,” they said. At this point in my life, I didn’t feel anything about my breasts, but I did have strong feelings about the cancer.
When you’re in a family with historical breast cancer, you start having mammograms early. I had my first one at age 30. To me breast cancer seemed like a “when not if” scenario and I needed to be proactive and prepared. Yet here I was at 43, not having a clue what I wanted to do. Most women I interviewed with a family history were quite certain that if cancer appeared at any stage, even non invasive stage 0, they would remove both breasts. I wished I had such a strong conviction and certainty about the right path to take.
I flip flopped back and forth…racing from the lumpectomy to double mastectomy in a matter of hours. I was waiting for clarity, for a moment of calm. I agonized over making the right decision. It was a kind of emotional torture akin to psychological warfare. Ok maybe that’s taking it a little too far, but it was agony. Until one evening, I was sitting on the couch making a pro/con list. I scratched these words into my notebook “The Fear of Regret.”
Regret theory is taking into account how you will feel if you make the wrong decision. It applies to major and minor decision making.
A couple might push to purchase their first home because the interest rates are low. They might anticipate a hike in rates and a worse time to buy.
A young woman might freeze her eggs for later pregnancy. She’s pursuing a career and doesn’t feel it’s the right time for a family.
A sober alcoholic is tempted to drink at a celebratory function. That one drink could undo years of hard work.
You see where I’m going with this. The fear of regretting a decision or choice is a motivator in making that decision.
If years from now the cancer comes back, I want to be able to look at my son and husband, and tell them I did everything I could. And as I stared at those three words on my notebook, I was clear what I had to do.
After the double mastectomy, my husband and I met with the oncologist. This whole process just seems backwards to me. I wanted to meet with an oncologist FIRST to explain breast cancer, and specifically what markers in my biopsy meant. They won’t talk to you until after surgery so they can examine the new results on the sample removed.
No one in this process had ever mentioned chemotherapy. Remember, I was supposed to be sooooo lucky? That is until a standard genome test revealed a mid-range score.
Oncologists say that if you score a 25 or above you do some chemo to kill off any remaining cells. Anything below 18 and you’re in the clear. I scored a 22. The middle ground where only one study has been done on the effects chemo might have on returning cancer...but the results of that study were not yet available.
The middle ground where the oncologist looks at you and your husband and says “so YOU can decide if you want to do chemo or not.”
My husband looked right at the doctor and said “I feel highly unqualified to make the decision” and I yelled “no one WANTS to do chemo!!” Just when I thought the big, agonizing decision- making had come to an end, we were presented with one more challenge: a medicine that could knock my risk of recurrence down a few percentage points, but could also leave me with long-term health problems.
After one more genome test definitively placed me in the high-risk category, the decision became clear. Again the fear of regret came into play. I had to do everything I could do kill this cancer, and I was going to fry it with chemo.