posted Monday, 20 June 2005
Day 1: Somehow i knew... that despite the odds (you're too young... you have no family history... many women in their 20's find lumps and they are almost always nothing to worry about...), the lump i found in my left breast was not just going to go away. so between the time that i found the lump (sunday morning) and my appt with dr p (thursday), i must have felt myself up a thousand times... is it really a lump? is it getting smaller/bigger? and of course, to my very close friends... "here... feel this..."
Day 5: I trek the hour up to Dr P's office (hey - when you find a good gyn, you'll drive to see her). She performs an exam and confirms my finding "yup - you've got a lump". she sends me for an ultrasound. since the most common culprit of lumps in young women are cysts, which are filled with fluid, and ultrasound waves pass through fluid, only a solid mass will show on the ultrasound. easy enough. but mine showed up. after a quick consult w the radiologist, they scurried me across the hall (still decked out in my half-gown) to mammography. girls, the rumor is true: mammograms hurt like hell. especially for those of us with a "more athletic build". so they take shots from several angles and have me wait to make sure they got good films. at first, the women in the next room were chatting about their kids and then "wow... that is huge..." and the door shut. i know they were not talking about my rack. so they scurry me back to talk with dr p about what they found. dr p comes in and says she wants me to meet with a surgeon. she refers me to someone in princeton, who will meet me the very next morning. i was impressed with the pull dr p had in getting me through all my tests and in to the surgeon so quickly.
Day 6: I'm sitting in the exam room, in my gown, reading my "mental toughness training" book when i first meet dr d and nurse mary. little did i know how much mental toughness i would need to draw on in the coming weeks. Dr d shows me the films from the previous day and tells me what she sees. "i'm gonna be straight with you because i think it's important to be honest. the pictures here worry me a bit. these spots here are calcitrations, which often surround cancer. i'm going to do a biopsy to see what we find, but i want to take the lump out either way" woah - she just said the "c-word". like it was nothing. "you may wonder why bother with the biopsy if we are going to take it out anyways, but it will give us a better understanding of what we're dealing with and what we need to remove". ok. i think they were a little surprised that i wanted to watch the whole thing.
needle- anesthetic to numb (ok it hurt a little)
scalpel - small incision
core needle - pops out samples of the tissue (the 2nd one hurt, so they fixed me up with some more anesthetic)
scalpel - small incision
core needle - pops out samples of the tissue (the 2nd one hurt, so they fixed me up with some more anesthetic)
then some gauze, a bandaid & an ice pack... good as new... i meet with the surgery scheduler - the first date available is friday, june 23. ok... june 24/25 is easterns. the end-of-spring tournament that i have been busting my butt to get in shape for. is there any other date? june 27th. ok... that will work... i mean, it's a minor issue that i am closing on my house on the 28th and moving on the 1st, but we'll figure something out... at least i can play frisbee!
I should get the results of the biopsy by mid-week, so I am off - meet jen for breakfast, work a full day, summer league game (we won)... life goes on...
Day 10 (Tuesday): Is it mid-week yet? (Robin: No, not yet)
Day 11 (Wednesday): Is it mid-week yet? (Robin: Ok - you can call)... Dr D and Nurse Mary are not in on Wed, so they'll be calling me back the next day.
Day 12 (Thursday): Nurse Mary - no results yet
Day 13 (Friday): Nurse Mary - no results yet. ugh. i have to wait the whole weekend? she promises they'll be back on Monday and schedules time for me to come in and meet with Dr D.
Day 14: Our ultimate team has a weekend retreat in Lancaster, which is an excellent dirstraction. full day of practice, followed by team events. WICKED is born!
Day 15: More practice. When I get home, I work for a few hours, then turn my attention to surfing the web for info on breast cancer. bad idea. get pretty worked up as i prepare myself for the worst. Nothing like scaring yourself silly to help get to sleep at night…
Day 16: I work a full day, getting the team prepped for our meeting. I have no time to think about what is in store for me. They head out around 3:30... I do too... I pick up Susie, who is going with me to see dr d. she examines me quickly "yup-it's still there" and then asks me to get dressed. we'll meet in the conference room to talk. hmmm... if it was good news, i think she would have just said "Hey...great news! It's just [enter benign breast condition here]!"... not "let's meet in the conf room where it is more comfortable". she enters, bearing a big pink folder. hmmm.. then she pulls out the results from my biopsy: "invasive ductal carcinoma... poorly differentiated" ok... whatever that means. good thing susie was there. she is newly armed with a phD and asks all the smart questions. i sit and listen, absorbing more than i thought i would. i learned more about breast cancer in those 15 minutes than i likely ever would have. in fact, i became something of a mini-walking-statistics book on breast cancer. i guess it makes it easier to take a clinical look at things... this is what it is... this is what we do about it... wow. susie convinces me to skip my summer league game and go have mojitos on the patio at mediterra. (good call susie!) jaeger, abby, robin/katie, maupin, susan and blo join us. it's like a little party... but i know it's not really. i am glad to be there with my friends and to feel their support. but i tire early and head home, carrying the knowledge that i have cancer.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/breast/Patient/page1
Thinking of you :) 
No comments:
Post a Comment