"It's just a cyst."

My doctor was telling me the pea-sized bump on my chest was nothing to worry about. Alarms were going off in my head, but he was insisting: This is no big deal. So I went home. My wife, Rebecca, and I spent two weeks probing and palpating the bump. What is it? Can we relax knowing that this is here?

I knew that I couldn't. This was not my first encounter with a foreign entity burrowing into my body. Fifteen years earlier, when I was a single man in my late 50s, living alone in a wonderful little duplex in Westport, Washington, and working at a prison nearby, I was loving life, looking for romance and new relationships. But suddenly, I faced testicular cancer. I was terrified. I knew it would have a significant impact on my sexuality—or I believed it would. The whole self-image issue came up for me. Do I want to be naked with someone new? Do I want to be touched? Would I have to be mutilated in some way? Driving miles each week for chemo on my own—that was a bitch. I was sick, sick, sick, for weeks. Six weeks of that. It was tough.

But I made it. I survived. I got married to a wonderful woman. But now facing breast cancer, I sat in my home, terrorized again by a "what if?" Two weeks later, I went back to the doctor's office and told my doctor that I didn't give a rat's ass—I wanted it gone.

He sent me to a surgeon, who agreed with the earlier assessment.

"It's just a cyst."

"I'm here to have it removed," I told him.

The surgeon swabbed me down with alcohol and shot me with numbing medication. He expected to be able to pluck it out easily. The surgeon dug and dug, shooting more anesthetic into my chest as his knife cut deeper. What he finally retrieved was the size of my thumb, encapsulated and clear.

"Still," he reassured me, "it's just a cyst."

***

Male breast cancer is rare. The American Cancer Society estimates that about one in every 1,000 men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, compared to one in every eight women. Since male breast cancer is so rare, few men think to screen themselves for it and aren't being told to do so. By the time a tumor is diagnosed, it has likely already metastasized into the bones and the lungs, a terminal condition. Men tend not to understand the risk, and the women in their lives tend not to understand the risk.

When I finally heard from the surgeon, I was at work. "I am so sorry," he said.

The law in Washington state requires doctors to send anything cut out of somebody to the lab. Weeks went by while Rebecca and I waited for the results to come in. My emotions were sliding all over the place, but I tried living my normal day-to-day life. When I finally heard from the surgeon, I was at work.

"I am so sorry," he said.

The surgeon explained that the "cyst" was a ductal-infiltrating, estrogen-receptive cancerous tumor. He recommended a mastectomy. I learned that men have milk ducts just like women. We don't develop them, but they're built in. The surgeon said that there was every reason to believe that the ductal system in my right breast might very well harbor other cancers. At the time, they may have been miniscule, even microscopic, but, he told me, the sentinel nodes—lymph nodes that draw off moisture that would otherwise be perspired—needed to come out. He asked me what I wanted to do.

"Why?" wondered my surgeon after I told him I wanted not just a removal of the cancerous breast, but preventative surgery to remove my left one as well.

"Because I never want to come back here again."

***

By then, mortality didn't scare me. When I was 12 years old, I had the privilege of dying. I remember lying on the operating table for surgery, doctors pumping morphine into my system as a preoperative. My family was unaware that I was allergic. I went into anaphylactic shock. My only memory is floating above the operating table, watching surgeons save a boy's life. The boy was me. I was in a warm, welcoming place. I wasn't afraid at all. Then I came back.

The only thing that scared me about dying is how I would go.

The only thing that scared me about dying is how I would go, and who I would be when I went. I'd seen many pictures of people mutilated by mastectomies. This is not what happens today; surgeons can leave you with little to no scarring. But I had seen pictures that looked like a grappling hook ripped the breasts off the chest. And I'd felt violated when I had my testicular cancer. I lost some of my masculinity, some of my sexuality. Would the mastectomy take more away?

When we went home from Dr. Bill's office with a surgery date in hand, I wept. Not over the surgery or the tumor, which had already been removed, but because of the unknown. The time waiting for my surgery is a blur to me. Rebecca says I acted out in bizarre ways. I dwelled on questions. Given that this was an estrogen-receptive tumor, what did that mean about my estrogen levels? Was it affecting my health? My emotions? And I was emotionally up and down. Did the cancer spread? Wouldn't the tumor have spread cancer through my bones and my lungs and my liver by the time it got to be that big? I was all over the map, from peak to valley each night. I screamed at my wife, threw temper tantrums, acted depressed as hell. I was unapproachable.

But I never thought for a second that I wouldn't do the surgery. As they rolled me into the operating theater, I felt alone. And before I knew it, another part of me was gone. There was pain afterward. The fact that the pectoral muscle and my armpit had been insulted kept my body sore for a long time. And when the pain went away, I had no sensation at all. But my surgeon was a wizard with a knife. I had just one tiny little line across the middle of my chest where my nipple used to be and on the prophylactic side, you couldn't tell at all. I walked away with virtually no scarring.

And yet, I felt guilt. I came home and had a neoprene tube that went in my side, right next to my arm pit. I had to pump out fluids in the flesh, generated by the "insult" caused by surgery. The position of the tube made it impossible for me to do on my own. Rebecca took on pumping duties. I didn't want her looking at me but I had no choice. It would be years before I would go outside in a T-shirt, let alone without a shirt on. This wasn't rational, but there it was.

A few weeks after the operation, I bumped into an ex-boss. "I heard you had surgery," he said.

I told him that it was true—that I'd had a double mastectomy after surgeons had removed what turned out to be a cancerous tumor from under my right nipple. In the weeks leading up to the surgery, I had waited in terror, and afterward, I'd felt ashamed, embarrassed, and guilty with part of my body gone.

And now, here was my ex-boss saying, "Well, what's the big deal? You're a man. You don't need your tits."

I learned later that a rumor had gone around at work. Apparently, I went to the hospital to get breast implants.

***

After regaining my strength, I started looking for some kind of organized support group for survivors of male breast cancer. I turned first to the Susan B. Komen Foundation in hopes of finding a support group. I sent them emails, sent them letters, and made phone calls. No one ever responded.

I also found an organization called Casting for Recovery. When I was in college, I worked for a place called The Fishing Hole, building fly rods, teaching fly-fishing, and guiding trips on the Bow River. Casting for Recovery is an organization for women who are recovering from mastectomy through the act of casting a fly rod, which is very therapeutic in terms of getting your range of motion, muscle strength, and muscle tone back. So I offered my services. I'm a male. The group is for females. They turned me away.

I got to a place where I felt like a pariah for being a male with breast cancer. I know the loss of a breast or breasts is much more traumatic for women. Breasts don't define men in the same way. But it was all so odd. I didn't know any men that I could share that with. I wanted to turn to someone like me and say, "My name is Jacob and I've had a mastectomy."

this image is not availablepinterest
Media Platforms Design Team
Jacob and Rebecca

This month marks the seventh anniversary of my mastectomy. Surgeons continue to chip away at my body; over the years, I've had six basal cells removed from my cheeks and temples. Thanks to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation—the only organization to return my e-mails, and within 15 minutes—I was referred to Dr. Mary-Claire King, MD, at the University of Washington for genetic testing. Soon after the discovery of my illness, my daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 43. I want the rest of my family to know what risks lie ahead.

And I have a new life goal: leave a legacy to men—fathers, sons, and grandsons—on how to recognize and deal with breast cancer. There is a risk and men should educate themselves. A breast exam can be fun—Rebecca found my lump while we were making love! Men need to discover breast lumps early and report them to their physicians. They need to make demands from their doctors. My demand to have the lump excised saved my life. "It's just a cyst" is no longer a valid recommendation.

Seven years after my operation I walked out onto the patio only to realize I didn't have a shirt on in the summer time. I looked down at myself, then to Rebecca.

"I'm out here without a shirt," I said, feeling a little baffled.

"Yes, you are," she happily assured me.

It just happened. At some point in time, my body became my body again. Everyone with cancer deserves that moment.

Read more about detecting and treating male breast cancer at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's website. Follow Bryson's efforts to raise male breast cancer awareness on his blog and Facebook page.