Brush With a Bump

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.