The Day My Life Changed

It’s time. Time to tell my story. Time to share in case someone else finds it helpful or interesting or intriguing….. or maybe it is time to share just to get it out of my head.

As you may know if you have looked at my site I have Stage 4 breast cancer.

My story does not start there.

Nor does it end there, at least not yet.

In 2003 I was a wife and mom of two young girls.  We were a typical family. My husband was a coach and was just starting to work on a new business on the side. I had just started a new job as Director of Accounting for a local school district. The girls were in Kindergarten and Second grade.

Life was good. Our girls played youth soccer, We lived within 30 minutes to an hour of 3 of the girl’s grandparents. We were involved in church and things were what you would expect of a young family of four. There was no reason to think that life wasn’t going to continue in the same direction.

Until October. I hate the month of October. Many apologies to my husband whose birthday is October 1st.

On October 1, 2003 I had my annual WELL woman check. That is the last time I will use that term. During the exam, my doctor found a lump.

I’m sorry, WHAT? A Lump? That can’t be right. I feel fine. There must be a mistake.

The doctor sent me to get a mammogram to make sure there was nothing going on. I had one mammogram when I was in my mid twenties which turned out to be absolutely nothing.

The doctor’s office called the only location is Austin that performed diagnostic mammograms at that time and I dutifully drove over there. It did not occur to me to have anyone meet me there. After all, in my heart and in my head, there was no reason to believe anything was really wrong.

I mean, really. I knew all of my great grandparents.  Yes, I said great grandparents. All of my grandparents except one were still alive. There was not any history of breast cancer, or any cancer for that matter, in our family. This was going to turn out to be like the ‘scare’ I had 9 years ago which just showed that I had “dense breasts.”

I went into the Women’s Imaging Center confident that this would be the last of it. The results would be sent to my doctor and I wouldn’t have to get another mammogram until I turned 40.

Let’s face it, there is nothing fun about getting a mammogram. For whatever reason, it seems the technicians keep their hands in an ice bucket until the patient comes in. The room temperature is set to Alaska and the plastic seems to retain the cold better than copper conducts heat.

For the record, the technicians do not read the mammograms. But I do believe that they have seen enough of them to know when something isn’t right. After the mammogram the technician to me to the nearest changing room and asked me to wait while she showed the films to the radiologist.

There is nothing to do in the changing room. It is about the size of a guest closet and they don’t expect people to wait there. My heart began to race and was pounding in my ears. Why do I need to wait? Why does the radiologist need to read them before I leave? I have dense breasts. It’s not big deal. Right?

Tick…tick….tick….tick…tick…

After what seemed like hours, but was more likely only about 5-10 minutes, the technician came to get me. The radiologist wanted to do an ultra sound just to be sure. What?

That day I learned if they let you leave after a mammogram it is much more likely that you will have a favorable report. When they tell you they need to look further, that’s when you should start to worry.

The technician took me to another room and the radiologist came in. He performed an ultrasound and pointed out on the screen the reason my doctor had sent me for the exam.

Honestly, I could barely even see it on the screen, but they know what they are looking at and it concerned him.

Once my heart stopped pounding in my ears (for a minute I wasn’t sure it hadn’t just stopped all together) I heard the radiologist tell me he was referring me to a surgeon.

In a fog, I got dressed and went to my car. I sat there for a few minutes before calling my husband. Probably not the best birthday present I’ve ever given him….

To be continued……