This is a guest opinion column

“Don’t look at the needle,” the technician said.

My left arm curved over my head like the letter C while the radiologist jammed the thin needle into the sunken flesh of my left breast to perform the ultrasound biopsy.

Like an olive picker, the needle’s tiny claws bit small chunks of tissue where my recent MRI had shown a suspicious spot near the edge of the previous lumpectomy. This was 2021 and I was only a couple of months away from reaching the five-year survivorship milestone since my diagnosis in 2017.

Like many women diagnosed with breast cancer, I chose a lumpectomy when I discovered I had stage 1 cancer. My friend with early-stage breast cancer chose a radical mastectomy. I’ve experienced a rollercoaster of imaging every six months and a life of scanxiety, while she has undergone multiple surgeries due to complications and potential cancer-causing implants.

Both paths through the cancer maze have meant tough choices without any guarantees. But one choice, choosing a lumpectomy, means living with a constant balancing act of weighing the risks of the unnecessary stress of false positives, over-treatment, and overexposure to radiation and the contrast dye gadolinium with the obvious benefit of catching cancer early. Almost 300,000 women are diagnosed annually with 43,000 women dying from the disease.

This is a mind-numbing statistic until the situation affects you personally and then it’s a bomb shattering life as you once knew it.

All I could think about as I fought back the tears that day was, “Please, god, never let Frances have to go through this.” She was my nineteen-year-old daughter at the time.

The gray haired doctor walked across the small room to another computer screen to take a closer look at my breast MRI where the spot had been detected. I also sat up to examine the ghostly image. As she turned around to search for that same area on the ultrasound screen next to me, I startled her.

“Lie back down,” she said, her eyes a searchlight scanning the murky waves on the gray screen. “I need you to lie down so I can do my job!”

I squinted my eyes at her, surprised by her frustration, even though hunting for the suspicious imposter felt like trying to find a lost earring on the ocean floor.

When she finished the biopsy procedure, her anxiety filled the room. “If your results don’t come back cancer, I want you to have an MRI biopsy.” I knew she knew she had snatched the biopsy sample from the wrong area where she had placed a small metal clip to mark her work.

The nurse called a week later with the biopsy results: abnormal cells stacked on each other in a sticky blob. Pre-cancer. But not always developing into cancer. Like a thundercloud pregnant with rain. Will it pour down or not? The conditions may be favorable, but in the end, you don’t know for sure until it actually rains. Or turns into cancer.

I met with my surgeon who recommended surgery for this new suspicious spot. No need for that MRI biopsy. A few days before the scheduled surgery, I went to have a SAVI placed where the piece of metal was.

The SAVI, new technology implemented since my initial diagnosis, emits a radio signal to guide the surgeon where to cut.

A different radiologist placing the SAVI stood for a long time in front of the MRI image of my breasts aligned next to the ultrasound image.

“I’m concerned,” she said, “because this metal clip from the ultrasound biopsy isn’t located where the area of concern is on the MRI.” She pointed to the image, and I saw the discrepancy. “If were my mother or sister or me, I’d get an MRI-guided biopsy, so the surgeon can find the right place.”

More uncertainty, more waiting due to the Covid overload on hospitals, and more fear. I had to push away my obsessive worrying about what I’d do if the cancer had returned and try to live my life in the present moment.

Almost two months later, in the hospital basement, I hitched up the drawstring to my oversized scrubs and shuffled from the bathroom past the cubicles where people changed and waited for the nurse to retrieve them for their MRI. I could hear the staccato hammering of the machines. I passed a cubicle whose door was slightly ajar. An older man sat, still in his white undershirt, with his head in his hands. I wanted to cry for both of us.

The night before, I’d had a premonition I needed to call my doctor to tell her that I only wanted women in the room when I went in for my 5th breast MRI in the past six years, even though a man had never been present, but I told myself to stop being so controlling and go with the flow.

Back in my cubicle, I also left my door cracked open to let the nurse know I was ready, but when she came, she was a handsome young resident in his late 20s who escorted me to the room with an MRI machine. There the radiologist, a young woman with a bright smile and a deep confident voice, waited, along with four other nurses. She stood before me and said, “Okay, let’s open your gown.”

The handsome young man stood next to me with a Sharpie marker in hand. “Wait,” I said. “I need to say something. First, I’ll probably cry because I’m just feeling vulnerable. Second, don’t you think it’s weird that I’ve met you all of three seconds, and now you’re just asking me to bare my breasts? You know, it might be one thing if I were 25 with some hot tatas, but right now, I’m a middle-aged woman who’s had two kids and a lumpectomy.”

They all just stared at me, clearly ready to move on with the procedure, but doing their best to be patient.

“You’d understand if you’ve had breast cancer,” I said. One of the nurses nodded and said, “Honey, I understand. I’ve had breast cancer.” I took off my gown, wondering how I’d become the oldest person in the room, and climbed onto the MRI bed, face down, to let my boobs toggle through the holes. The doctor guided the resident where to draw X marks the spot, and the nurse who’d had breast cancer patted my back the entire time. Inside the machine, cold dye oozed through my veins, and I wondered when could I live without the fear of the cancer returning.

This much I knew: there’s not a one-size-fits-all cure for cancer and whatever treatment route you choose depends on a variety of factors and your peace of mind. There’s also not a one-and-done. You never crossed the finish line as far as your health. It’s a work in progress until the day you die. But, during this process, as I faced each new scan, I was learning to live from a place of resilience and hope, not fear of the unknown, fear of harboring cancer, fear of death. Being a cancer survivor means living simultaneously with an awareness of both life and death, and that is the heart of resilience. After another week of waiting, the doctor called to tell me my results. I held my breath.

“It’s negative for cancer,” she said. “It’s scar tissue.” No need for surgery. I started breathing again, hung up the phone, and marked my calendar for the next six-month scan.

Lanier Isom, of Birmingham, is co-author of Lilly Ledbetter’s memoir “Grace and Grit: How I Won My Fight at Goodyear and Beyond.”