26 August, 2009: The beginning

Wow, this is kind of tough because it turns out there was another beginning.   But I think I will come back to that later.  First thing I am going to do is set out a time-line of the most current events leading up to the diagnosis of my breast cancer.  Now that statement right there is not an example of how denial is my happy place.  It almost sounds like acceptance or something.  I guess it has been a couple of months of serious treatments, so those feelings come and go.

Anyway, on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009, I went in for my annual gynecological exam.  Feeling no stress whatsover despite the fact that I had a lump in my right breast.  It had been there for almost 3 years, checked, mammogrammed, ultrasounded, rechecked only to determine that I had dense fibrous tissue.  Nothing to worry about.  OK---I trust all of these medical professionals completely.  Well, my OB found what he believed to be a sizeable Cyst in my left breast and he wanted the right breast checked again so he scheduled me for a diagnostic mammogram---right away.  Apparently "diagnostic" is a key word here.  It means that they take it much more seriously.  STILL...at this point I am feeling no stress whatsover.  This is no different from the last mammogram, right?  More dense tissue.  Maybe need to drain a cyst.  No big deal.  After all, I have no known cases of breast cancer in my extended family.  I'm very low risk.

I went in the following Monday for the Mammogram and Ultrasound.  The technicians were not very revealing, but did want to do an immediate tissue Biopsy.  I  politely declined because the kids were coming home from school shortly.  We would have to reschedule.  This is definitely where the denial started setting in.

We even spent the following weekend up in Idaho at the Eastern Idaho State Fair!  Good food, friends and family.  Complete denial.  I barely even discussed it with my husband.  He had no idea of the urgency until we got back and the calls started coming in. 

Turned out to be two weeks later, Monday, September 14th.  Not a good day.  Their first mistake was explaining that they would numb me up a little, make a little slice in the skin so they could shove large needles into my breast in multiple places to extract tissue they believed to be abnormal---also something about a loud popping sound.  Yikes!!  These were actually VERY nice and understanding people but maybe a little too revealing with the details for someone as needle shy as myself.  Their second mistake was telling me that my husband couldn't come with me.  That would explain the 2 week delay.  After multiple calls from my OB and his nurse and the Breast Care Center that this was serious business, John finally made me go in and he pretty much demanded to be with me.  What would I do without him?  Still be in denial of course. :)

The Biopsy was not fun for me.  The radiologists were pretty blunt in telling us that they would be stunned if this was not breast cancer that had most likely spread to my right lymphnodes.  We also were stunned.  How could this be happening to us?  It's not as if I was delinquent on my annual exams and had in fact had that early "baseline" mammogram 3 years earlier at only 36 years of age.  The final results would take about 48 hours, but we didn't have much hope for good news.