This particular week began on Sunday night, August 14, 2011 at bedtime. It turned out to be perhaps the most emotionally intense week of my life. We had just gotten in bed, the 2 of us & our beloved Black Lab, Dolly. My husband put his arm around me & said, What the heck?" I said, "What?" in a panicked voice. He told me he felt a lump. I jumped out of bed complete with electrical currents running through my body. I was quite sure it was a seam in my pajama pocket so why was I so scared? I soon realized my pajamas had no pocket. I realized I had a lump. Next I tried to convince the 2 of us that it was probably a benign cyst like our daughter had just a year earlier.
I laid my head on my pillow & felt horrified. I resolved to call the doctor in the morning. I got in with the PA. She suggested I just keep an eye on it. It felt like it was floating & was probably hormonal. I was relieved (for a moment), but that panic stricken feeling quickly returned. I told the PA I preferred to get a mammogram for my own peace of mind. Thank God I did! Just a month sooner we had been on a cruise having the time of our married life. Little did I know that those days were over. We were about to enter the most stressful years of our marriage. Just for the record, 7 months earlier, I had a mammogram that was clean.
That Monday morning as I headed to the diagnostic center, I prayed. I called my husband, & he met me there. I called my friend & asked her to pray for me. She thought I sounded shaken, so she headed there too. Meanwhile, I was by myself receiving news that would turn my world upside down. My husband was not allowed back with me. My friend arrived, & being a female, she was allowed to join me. My husband waited alone in the waiting area. The nurse went to comfort him & suggested he take me wherever I wanted to go on the way home. I was having a lump biopsy & a lymph node biopsy. I was so scared.
With each day of that week, a new word was heard. I felt as if I were hearing a foreign language. With each day, a new fear was founded. By the end of that painful & frightening week, I knew my lump was the size of a walnut. It had uneven margins. It was Her2Nu positive, Estrogen positive, & aggressive. It was Inductal Carcinoma. It was invasive. If we did nothing, I would soon lose my life. Chemo, surgery, & radiation would be necessary. I felt like throwing up. My husband had a pained look on his face which I had never seen before but would become his common expression throughout the years that followed. I knew I was in over my head, & I was in trouble. I became very vulnerable & overwhelmed. My life had changed. It would never be the same.
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