One of the many updates I missed telling you about was my brush
with a bump. Unless you've been living under a rock, those you living the
States know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Pink has taken over
the traditional oranges and blacks of my favorite time of year. But it's all
for a good cause, I suppose, so I'll let it slide.
I had a
hysterectomy in 2011. Most people use this monthly reminder to do a self-breast
exam. I have no such prompt anymore so I just do it whenever the thought
crosses my mind. I had a well-woman exam this past May and everything was
hunky-dory. I did notice that my chest was breaking out like it did when I was
in high school. Super gross, I know, but here is the whole story. I was at the
end of mid-terms, working full time, still in marching season for my son's
band, and volunteering as the treasurer for his booster club. I know, I'm a
little nuts. I figured that the stress was getting to me and was taking the
form of adolescent chest acne.
This particular
day, when I got out of the shower, I noticed a new outcropping of pimples on my
right breast. Out of frustration I rubbed at them and felt something that
shouldn't be there. It was one of those moments where I felt the bump but
denied that what it actually was. So I went back in for the second feel and
realized that I was right the first time. Oh, no.
What I found was a
hard mass that seemingly popped up overnight. In May all was well. In October I
was gonna die. I finished getting ready for work and went the entire day
without telling anyone what I had found. Not true - I texted my husband. I had
to talk to someone. At home, I made my husband feel me up but we took no joy in
this moment. He confirmed my lumpy breast.
I'm sure everyone
has a different way of dealing with difficult situations. Mine is to hop on the
computer and find out everything I can about what is going on. The odds that I
was sick were 2 in 10. Not one 1 in 5, but 2 in 10 which I ruminated over for
days. Why not reduce the fraction? Those are the things that kept me up at
night. It's like they add another person into the statistic, which is a
ridiculous notion.
At any rate, the
actual next step was to see my family doctor who could do nothing more than
confirm that I had indeed found a bump on my boob and refer me the breast
center at Methodist Hospital in Houston for an ultrasound. Which I did. Yup, it
was still there. Bad news? It was getting bigger. The next thing to do was a
biopsy.
At this point I
had to tell my manager/friend at work what I was going through. We bonded over
some of our similar health scares and pulled out a calendar. We should all be
so lucky as to get the days off that are needed to go through important events
in our lives.
The biopsy wasn't
as scary as I imagined in my brain. I was awake the whole time but fortunately
the whole procedure only took a few minutes. It's the waiting that gets you.
You wait before you go in, wait for results, wait for action. The whole thing
is nothing more than a waiting game. But the biopsy was nearly painless. I only
felt it twice. The first time she numbed me up a little more and the second
time she explained it was because they were at the back of the bump and it's
hard to numb you up all the way. Well, I wish they'd told me that, but at least
it wasn't all that bad. I did have to refrain from lifting for a full 48 hours
which gave me an excused absence from work.
This is also when
I made the decision to change doctors’ offices. My primary care doctor's office
may be full of very intelligent people but their staff ruins everything. I
ended up requesting the hospital give me my results because I knew if I left it
to the doctor's office that I would be left in the lurch for weeks or die of
something terrible in the meantime.
The results were
in: a fibroadenoma. Completely benign but it had to come out because mine was
the kind that would keep getting bigger. In fact, by the time I had my surgery
it had grown another centimeter in only a few weeks. The surgery was nothing
more than a superficial removal of tissue. I was able to return to work the
very next day. And waiting in the mail box for me at home was a referral from
my doctor's office to go the breast center to see about that pesky bump. Good
thing I never waited for the diagnosis to come - it never did.
My brush with a
bump taught me a few things about myself. I found it very fascinating how quickly
I went from thinking of my breasts as beasts of burden (and let’s face it
ladies, we all do), to coveting them, to coming to grips with what could be the
reality of the situation. I finally reached a point where I thought, "Just
cut 'em off." In the end I am left with my Frankenboob. The surgeon was
excellent, mind you, but because I am so pale as to be translucent and my skin
scars really easily. I don't really mind. After a hernia operation, three cesareans,
open heart surgery, a hysterectomy, the biopsy and now this, my torso is
riddled with scars anyway. What was one more so long I was well?
And I love my Frankenboob.
