January 6, 2015: The Day That Changed My Life

I have no excuse.

Well, that's a lie, because I do have an excuse, just not a very good one. Actually I have lots of excuses and none of them are any good, but that doesn't change the fact that the last mammogram I had on record before January 6, 2015 was done in 2009.

Straight up...I hate mammograms. But I hate going to the gynecologist even more, and I didn't think I could get a mammogram without orders from the gynecologist, and since I didn't go get my annual, I didn't get a mammogram either. Stupid, I know, and the reason I didn't go to the gynecologist has less to do with the prodding and probing than the fact that I had to get on a scale.

I used to weigh a lot more than I wanted to. After Emily was born, I weighed more than I had in my life. The nurse at my OBGYN scolded me a year after Emily was born because I didn't drop the baby weight like I did after Claire. The next year, she commented again, and I decided to get serious about it, so I went on Weight Watchers and lost a lot of weight. Then after my mom died, I started gaining it back. At the last visit to my now GYN (no more OB for me, thank you very much), the nurse said my weight out loud and commented, "You're up 15 pounds from two years ago. You'd better get on top of this, or it will become more of an issue than it already is."

I knew that already, and what I felt was shame.

So I didn't go back. For five years.

Stupid, I know, but I admit it. I feel like an alcoholic in the beginning of sobriety saying to the world, "I am an alcoholic." I feel like if I own this shame and this reality, I can start to do something about it and make some positive changes in my life.

Last March, I decided that I had been avoiding my "annual" long enough, and I made an appointment to go in for an exam. When I went to get weighed, I told the nurse, "I know I've gained weight, and I know how much. I haven't been in for a long time because I am ashamed of myself. Please don't say my weight out loud when you weigh me," and I closed my eyes when I stood on the scale.

She just looked at me funny and moved the weights and wrote down the number. I had my exam, and my GYN noted that it had been awhile since I had had a mammogram, and wrote me orders for one. I meant to go, but I never made the appointment, and since I wasn't in the habit of getting one annually, I just forgot about it.

Kyle had his prom and graduated from high school. I went to Florida with the girls and got Kyle set up in college...October rolled around and I saw pink crap everywhere and thought, "I need to get a mammogram," but I hate pink so much that I didn't do it in October just to prove a point. Nobody noticed, but I felt better. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas, and with the turn of the calendar year, I decided to make a change in my life.

I thought, "Someday, you will miss this very body you are ashamed of now. Someday, you will wish you looked this good." So I decided on a change of attitude. I decided to get my mammogram first then my annual then a complete physical. I was going to go to the dermatologist for a skin check and start to exercise a little and take my life and my body back.

So on January 6, 2015, I went to the diagnostic center for the mammogram. As I signed in, I thought to myself, "I wonder if today is the day that will change my life forever."

When the call came from my GYN the next day that there was a suspicious cluster of micro calcifications on my left breast and I needed to come in for a biopsy, I knew the answer was, "Yes."

The thing was, my regular GYN had retired since my checkup last year, although I didn't know it at the time. So I had this totally new person giving me advice on what to do. I was trying to listen and process what she was saying, but I only heard "5" and "micro calcifications" and "suspicious" and "biopsy." Immediately, I went to the computer---wrong thing to do---and googled those terms. It didn't matter that what came up said that 80% of calcifications are benign. That worst case scenario, it would be ductal carcinoma in situ. What I read was "cancer."

We left for New Orleans, and I began digging around my armpits and breast. I sat in the car the whole twelve hours trying to slyly feel a knot or bump. I didn't feel anything unusual, but my armpits began hurting, especially the left one where the calcifications were. I kept digging and digging and the panic began to rise. Did I feel something? I'd check both sides to look for symmetry. Yes? No? I couldn't tell. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I kept looking anyway. I would be walking around New Orleans thinking about this. Sometimes my mind would wander and I would be enjoying whatever it was we were doing, then I'd snap back and think, "cancer."

My friend, Amy, kept texting me, "Don't touch," and she reminded me that the more I touched, the more they would hurt and the more I would worry. I did my best to keep hands off, and it did help ease the pain some. I also stopped looking online for clues. That helped a little too. I stayed scared, though.

The biopsy was Friday morning. When I saw the mammogram hanging on the wall, the tech showed me where the calcifications were. I had one spot, not five like I thought, with five tiny calcifications in it. She reassured me that it was very, very tiny. It is also located in a part of my breast that has dense breast tissue. She said that is much better than having it in the fatty part. She said that dense tissue has more fibroadenomas than fatty parts, and often the calcifications are leftovers from when the fibroadenomas "die off."

During the procedure, I laid on my stomach on a bed, with my breast in a mammogram machine. They numbed my breast and inserted a hollow needle with a vacuum attachment. They sucked out the calcifications to send to pathology. Then a titanium clip was inserted into the spot to mark it for future reference. Then they cleaned me up and put skin glue on the spot. They took another set of mammograms of me to make sure they got what they needed. I got to see the mammogram of the tissue samples, and there were about 5 calcifications that were bigger and a few more that were much smaller. By "bigger" I mean the size of a piece of sand. They were very, very small.

I told the tech how scared I was and she said that it was probably nothing, but worst case scenario, if it was cancer, then it was very, very early and very, very small. It would be something that would be easily treatable with no negative consequences. I asked the radiologist to give me a percentage what he thought about it being cancer, and he said he couldn't say, obviously, but if he had to guess, he'd say maybe 30%.

I prayed. Kirk prayed. Kirk and I prayed together. But I thought surely other people more worthy than I have prayed this very same prayer. Why would God listen to me?

So all weekend, I laid around. I tried not to think of the possibilities. I felt nauseous. I was starving. I wanted chocolate, mashed potatoes, and cheese. I planned my funeral. I thought of all I had to do before I died. I cried about my kids. I saw signs everywhere I looked. I heard "cancer" on TV, the radio, at Kroger. I worried about insurance. I thought of our vacation plans getting cancelled. I wondered how Emily would get to play practice or who would help Claire pick a college or Kyle celebrate his love of living history?  I tried to stay off the computer, but I googled every possible combination of breast cancer, micro calcifications, and stereotactic biopsy that I could find. I went to the very darkest places even though I knew, I knew, I shouldn't. Amy said that if I worried and it was nothing, then I had worried for nothing. If I worried and it was something, then I had lived it twice. I couldn't help it. I was just. So. Scared.

I carried my phone around with me all day yesterday waiting for the call. It finally came at 4:30.

Benign.

I bawled my eyes out.

I have a new GYN. I have found a new general practitioner. I will remember the fear I felt these past two weeks and celebrate with gusto this life that I have. My imperfect body. My muffin top. My husband and children. My future.