So...

Yeah.

About six weeks ago, I noticed some pain. It wasn’t horrible. Just…weird. It was near my left armpit. I couldn’t tell if it was in the breast or the armpit, actually. It was vague.

A week after the pain started I mentioned it to my family doctor. I was there to talk about my stupid left foot but mentioned the armpit/breast pain too because, well, I was already there in the office. He did a little pushing in the general vicinity of the area I indicated the pain was and declared that since I’d had a clear mammogram just this past April, well, let’s just see if the pain resolves itself.

It didn’t.

Four weeks after that appointment, five weeks into experiencing the pain, I called my gynecologist. I mean, I just figured a doctor who’d chosen to specialize in women’s health might be the better bet on this second go around in discussing the pain.

This time, the doctor had me take off my shirt and bra and lie on the exam table. He pushed and PUSHED and yikes, I was able to say, “Yep, that’s where the pain is!”

He felt some ‘thickening’. He didn’t like the feeling of that thickening. He scheduled me for an ultrasound the very next day. This was last Wednesday.

Since I was there in the office, I decided to schedule an appointment for Olivia to get some vaccinations. She was due for them (maybe even overdue) and what the heck, the girls weren’t in school yet. Her appointment was for 9:15. My ultrasound was scheduled for 10:00 in the same building.

We arrived at the hospital for her appointment at 9:00 (because if you’re on time, you’re late!) and waited. She was finally called back at 9:35. I told the nurse, as nicely as possible, that I was supposed to check in for an ultrasound at 9:45 for a 10:00 appointment so if we could move Liv’s appointment along, that would be great. She made soothing sounds and said she’d be right with us.

We managed to get out of there in time for me to check in for the ultrasound at 9:50, only five minutes late. I was only a little stressed at this point.

I was called back for the ultrasound right away. They’re cool like that. The girls were allowed to come back with me and wait in the “Ladies” waiting room, just outside where the ultrasound was taking place.

The tech found a mass that was about 2cm. The ultrasound results were sent to the diagnostic center to be read. Twenty minutes later, a doctor was on the phone with me telling me that he’d like me to get a biopsy of the mass. The ultrasound tech and her co-worker, the mammographer told me to stick around, they were going to do their best to get a doctor down there in the next half hour to get the biopsy done.

We were walking out of the hospital by 11:30, biopsy samples collected and being sent off to the lab.

That was last Wednesday. The ladies at the imaging center told me it would take about three business days to get the results back to my doctor. I went about my life, got the girls off to their first day of school, went to work, bought groceries.

On Sunday at 5pm, I saw that I’d had a missed call from my gynecologist. He’d call about an hour before. On a Sunday.

That gave me time to get used to the idea that the results were back and they were not good news.

I called him back first thing Monday morning and he told me over the phone, “It’s cancer.”

Then he asked me if my husband and I could meet with him in his office at 2:45 that afternoon. He said he didn’t like to go into details over the phone.

Okay.

Tom and I met at the doctor’s office (which is in a wing of the hospital) and we were told that I need to meet with a surgeon. The doctor said it might take two weeks for the surgeon to fit me in.

The nurse came in and told me she’d already called the surgeon and I was scheduled to meet with him on Thursday…of this week. Yeah, that was fast.

So…we’ll see what the surgeon says on Thursday.

I’m still processing everything. I’m trying to be positive and calm. I’m trying to remember that this isn’t the death sentence it was so many years ago.

I’m trying.