One Year ago Today...

Today is March 2nd and it has just occurred to me that it was one year ago today that my second journey with breast cancer officially began. It was March 2nd, 2007, and I headed off to a Doctor’s appointment in the morning. Chris stayed at home with all the children, our two and two daycare children. I met a different Doc as ours was off to South Africa with his family for a 5 week vacation. The Dr. who filled in was a very nice woman who nicely told me that my breast felt completely normal to her. But she filled in a request for a diagnostic mammogram anyway and I told her that I’d be bringing it to the mammography clinic myself, without an appointment, and wait until they could fit me in. If I’d waited for her to send over the requ-form it would have been a week or longer for a mammogram to be scheduled. Even when marked “Urgent”, which she did do. Even though she felt my breast was normal, because of my past history and the fact that I wasn’t her patient, I think added an extra sense of urgency (which was beneficial for me). Though at this point I already had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right… that in fact something was terribly wrong. I went to the Clinic and nicely asked when they could fit me in. At first they said not today. Then I gave them some more personal info, pleading while remaining composed. Then by miracle one young woman who worked there recognized me when I said my name, she and I grew up together in church, in Sardis, though she was younger than me, I recognized her right away as well. She knew my history of having breast cancer before and she could see in my eyes, my desperate need to know what was happening now. She asked me to wait, and that she’d talk to the radiologist personally on my behalf. She came back and said that he’d agreed to fit me in within the hour. I said I was happy to wait and thank-you! When I got in for the mammogram, the lady tech recognized me. She’d done my previous mammogram and she said that I spoke at her daughter’s school. She said that she was so pleased with her daughter’s response to my presentation, that she finally now would talk with her mom about breast health issues and other things that she hadn’t before. This made me feel very encouraged in the midst of my boob squishing. We laughed together about a previous mammogram when I’d been breast feeding, and even though I breast fed right before the test, I still managed to spray milk several feet all over the mammography machine!
When the pictures were done and I was asked to wait while the radiologist gave them a look over and made sure the pictures where good enough. When the tech came back she said nicely that there was something they needed to take a closer look at and needed more pictures of. I just knew in that instant, that it was cancer, perhaps it was the “air” in the room, but more likely God softly preparing me for what was ahead. More pictures were taken, I was surprisingly calm. I said some quite prayers in my head to my soul and peace came. When those pictures were done, the tech asked me if I wanted to see what they were looking at, I said yes. I was surprised, because the area I was most concerned about was on the left side of my right breast where a pucker had appeared just a week prior. But where she was showing me was behind all of that, at the back of my breast tissue and a very small area, about half a cm at most. They decided to do a third round of pictures, I realized later it was because they wanted to see if there were any lymph nodes that showed any signs of being positive. ( In the report I read a week later, it stated that a posterior area of .6 cms showed signs of malignancy and that one lymph node also seemed suspicious of malignancy, when I read this I knew right way it was true and that I needed to have my breast removed asap!)
The radiologist asked if I was willing to go for an ultra sound right away that afternoon, which would mean bringing over my own mammogram pictures. I said, no problem. I called Chris and explained the situation, he was concerned but was still believing nothing was wrong, even though I just knew already. We decided then that we weren’t going to tell anyone just yet, because we didn’t want people worrying unnecessarily and word spreading that I had cancer again, if I didn’t. I had to remember that Chris had not been through this before, and now I was heading down a similar path for the second time. I wasn’t just me this time, this was also going to directly effect my husband and two daughters every single day as well. I had to think about what was best for them and not just for me.
I had time in between my mammograms and ultra-sound, so I went o home for a bit, Chris was managing with the children very well, as always, and he pulled out the slide pictures (which you aren’t suppose to do, but that’s not going to stop Chris when there’s something he wants to do) He held the pictures up against the window and I showed him the area they were concerned about. He was relieved to see that the spot was so small, though that’s what’s so discouraging about cancer, that something so small can cause so much harm. Off I went to my ultrasound appointment, with my mammogram slides in hand. My feelings were confirmed even more when the ultra-sound tech called for the radiologist to come in right away. He looked over the pictures and then told me that I need to have a needle core biopsy done at a hospital as soon as possible. I just knew that he could tell it was a cancer and probably one that had already spread to my lymph nodes.
I remained positive and optimistic but also realistic. I’d already decided that I would do what I could to have my breast removed as soon as possible. Even if it wasn’t cancer, or not that serious yet, I wasn’t willing to wait around anymore to see if I could get breast cancer again. I had peace about this decision even before confirmation came in two weeks later…to the day.