The Doctor Called, You Have Cancer

When I walked in the door from school that afternoon my home phone was ringing and my heart feel into my stomach, it was him. He proceeded to tell me that I had IDC or invasive doctoral carcinoma. I didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t sound good. I proceeded to ask him if he could still help me, it angered him and he said, “This is why I don’t like to do this on the phone” can you come to my office. I told him I was on my way.
My daughter came home from work and went with me; I thought another set of ears would be good.
When we arrived at his office my heart was beating so fast there was nothing I could do to calm it. He explained the report and seemed very frustrated and short with me, I began to wonder had I found the right surgeon for myself. He later told me he felt I wasn’t accepting what he was telling me; maybe I didn’t want to accept what he was saying. I ask a lot of questions that seemed to be a waste of his time. He told me to talk to my regular MD about my anxiety levels maybe he could give me something. I’m not sure about anyone else but I was full of anxiety and it hurt.

The Waiting Game

I had been referred to a surgeon in Gig Harbor who was suggested to me by my MD, It didn’t matter how far I had to drive as long as I could communicate with this guy and he would be straight up with me.
The day of the biopsy was scary, he first numbed my breast before he inserted an instrument about the size of a pencil, it made a clicking sound as it took pieces of the tumor to send to pathology. They sent the tissue to pathology on Thursday and told me the results would be back on Monday. What! You can put a man on the moon but I have to wait all weekend to know my results????
The weekend was long; I surrounded myself with my family and tried to pretend I was confident. I knew it was in God’s hands and whatever the outcome was he had a plan for me.
When I made the call on Monday morning I was between classes, I could not make myself concentrate on my work and was becoming more and more frustrated. Of course the receptionist said they will call you back. I waited all day; the call never came, so just before closing time I tried again. Ok by now they had decided I was a nut case that had zero patients and wanted my test results. Then I heard the dreaded words, “we don’t have the results back yet, we will call you tomorrow.” Are you kidding me! I believe I drank some wine that night, in fact, I think I drank a lot of wine that night.
The next morning I decided not to call them, no news is good news right. I kept my phone on at school all day and never received a call; surely they must have the result by now?

Another Mammogram

The first day of the new quarter of school had arrived and I knew it was going to be a tuff and exciting quarter, this was the last of my classes and then I could be on my way to starting a new chapter in my life. Who would have thought at 55 years old I would be starting a new career.
After getting my books and attending my classes I hurried to my appointment at the Breast Center. I hated going to that place, it always gave me such an uneasy feeling but today I was alright, I had some kind of confidence that it was just a cyst.
After the mammogram they placed me in room for an ultrasound, I had been through this one before. This time it was different, the doctor acted like he had found something, it angered me. I wanted to say you didn’t find anything bucko, I found it, quit being so proud of yourself. What he did next was alarming, when he started running the ultrasound instrument into my armpit and up my arm, I knew what he was looking for. He was looking at my lymph nodes to see if I had cancer that had spread, and I knew that’s what he was doing. I ask what he was looking at and he gave me very little information, and I knew he was very certain he had found cancer.
I still refused to believe it. The next step was to have a biopsy and then I would know for certain just what this lump was?

Road Trip To Vegas

We hit the road on Friday morning, off to Vegas at last. I was happy but had that lump in the back of my mind, I would try to put it aside and not let it put a damper on our trip.
We had a blast, shopped, saw a show, gambled a little, and ate way too much. I managed to keep the lump out of my mind but at night when I was alone it was there and I would try to tell myself it was going away. I spent a lot of time on my knees talking to God in that lonely hotel room and it’s a time I will never forget.
Soon we were on our way home and my sister and daughter started asking me if the lump was still there, “yes” I would say, “but it’s definitely getting smaller.” So I knew that was a good thing.

Labor Day 2010

In the early morning hours of September 5th labor day 2010, something woke me. I looked at my watch and thought to myself, why am I awake? I decided to do some stretches before hoping out of bed, as my hands went above my head and then down to my sides I brushed my hands along the sides of my breast. What the hell was that? I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, I could feel panic setting in, what is this, what is this. I threw off my night shirt and stood looking at my breast in the mirror. My right breast had a lump that I could see poking out the side, where did it come from, why hadn’t I noticed it yesterday? It wasn’t painful, just a big hard lump! It was a holiday and the Breast Center was closed.
I lay on my living room couch for the next hour feeling the lump under my fingers, what was this? It was something different than I had ever felt before, not one of the familiar lumps or fibroids that I had felt in the past. So after a few Google searches on breast lumps I had decided it was just a cyst. I avoided any link that wanted to talk about breast cancer, it was definitely not that! I was sure it was just caused by the bio identical hormones I had been taking to keep the hot flashes at bay and they were all natural so this cyst was just some fluid buildup. I did decide to stop taking the natural hormones at that very moment.
I couldn’t sleep very well that night in anticipation of the call to the breast center the next day. I was up early and waiting for someone to pick up the phone and tell me to come right in for a mammogram. To my surprise when the woman answered the phone and I explained my findings to her, she didn’t at all seem urgent.” My computer says you haven’t been here since 2006 Mary.”We’ll have to get your records from the warehouse and have a doctor on duty for your appointment because you do have a lump. We can see you on Monday next week. I paused, “you mean we can wait that long” sure, it’s probable nothing, 80% of these things are nothing. Boy, was that a relief, so what about my trip to Vegas? She said to go ahead and go and come in on the 21st when I returned. So that’s what I would do

Time for some R & R

Spring was on us and the thought of summer was truly sweet. Summer quarter was short and then a much needed break from school would fallow, I looked forward to this!
In September there was a big trade show that my sister would work in Las Vegas. We would make it a road trip; I think its part of hanging onto our childhood, we took a road trip every summer as children. This year was different, she had lost her job and was going to job seek instead of working. Just when I had decided not to go my daughter and her husband said they would like to go along this year, so the plan was on. We would do our road trip to Vegas after all. We would leave on September 11 and get back on September 20th just one day before the new quarter at school would begin.

Talking With God

Some nights as I lay in bed talking to God I would be reminded that I hadn’t had my routine checkups. I worried that I hadn’t taken time for myself to have a colonoscopy, a pap test, let alone another mammogram. I would deal with it all later; I needed to figure out what it was I was going to do now. My office skills were so outdated, who was going to hire this 50 something woman with these old skills not to mention a bad knee and bonk back. So the decision was made, off to school I went. It would take two years to get a legal assistant degree and this would be a wide open field by the time I finished. I tore into the work that consumed me. Trying to learn this new stuff after doing the same thing for so many years would prove to be tougher than I first thought, but I was doing it. It took everything I had.
By now my husband was living in his own little world of working two jobs, playing in his band and taking care of his elderly parents. I didn’t see him much and hoped our relationship could make it through another bump in the road. Soon he had to place his father with severe dementia in an assisted living home leaving his mother alone. At that point he pretty much moved in with his mom and just came home on Sundays when his brother could give him a break. It was really Ok, we have to take care of our parents, it made me wish I had spent more time with my mom instead of spending so much time at that stupid job.
In February of 2010 on a Monday morning my husband’s cell phone started ringing. The woman on the other end of the phone explained to him that his father had passed away in his sleep during the night and they needed him to come and make arrangements. Just one month later in March his mother would follow and take up her place in heaven also. The year had hardly started and it seemed we were in for quite the ride.