Prologue
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out, the maid screamed, a door slammed!…
…Just kidding, actually it all began on a cool clear autumn afternoon.
You know the kind of day I’m talking about, that first real cold snap, when the “dog days” of summer are still close enough to make you look forward to winter with relish. You know, the football games, hot chocolate by the fireplace, that first glistening blanket of snow [and the snowball fights and snow angels that go with it] that is until you remember that you have to shovel all that snow and you’ll freeze every time you walk out the door. Well, we were about to be “snowed under” in more ways than we could imagine!
Chapter 1
Oooh that’s weird!!
It was the Weekend after Thanksgiving; I was outside raking leaves with my son Jacob and Sister Jessica at the home we had just purchased with our Mother. We didn’t have any trees in our back yard but thanks to the abundant shade we had enjoyed from our neighbors trees, our yard was ankle deep in crisp brown and red leaves. Jacob was helping [that is to say he was raking the same pile over and over again and jumping into it] and I was holding the bags open while Jes filled them. We were almost done and Jes had just gone to get one last bag. I had my winter coat on but hadn’t bothered to wear gloves; my hands were cold so I put them under my arms to warm them. As I pressed my arms in to hold in the warmth, I felt something under my left arm. Just a little something, kind of a thick feeling little lump.
I didn’t say anything to anyone and when we went inside I went into the bathroom to check it out. It didn’t seem like much so I thought I’d just watch it for a while.
Over the next week I did breast exams in the shower and lying down several times to see if the lump changed at all or [please, God!] went away. Then one night I was lying in bed on my side and I felt it with my right hand. I could feel this hard little pea sized thing inside of the larger lump. Now, I have never been one to do self-exams religiously, but I did it often enough to know that this was not right! I Called my doctor the next day and made an appointment for the following Monday. During my appointment, Dr. Mino examined me and after feeling the lump told me not to worry, it was probably just a cyst. He recommended that I schedule a mammogram.
I called and scheduled a mammogram for the next week. They called me the day before to reschedule me for the next week due to an emergency. At this point I still had not told anyone about the lump. I figured, why worry anyone else if it turned out to be nothing. I was finally rescheduled for my mammogram on Dec. 19 2006. When I arrived at the imaging center they informed me that they would do the mammogram followed by an ultrasound. They do this routinely when anyone comes in with a lump. They questioned me about where the lump was located and marked the area with a sticker, then took several films of both sides. Then I was escorted to the ultrasound room by “Missy” the ultrasound tech. As she was prepping me for the ultrasound, the radiologist “Dr. Guterrez” came in to talk to me. I could tell by the look on her face that she had bad news. She said she had some concerns about the results of the mammogram and felt I should have an immediate biopsy. At this point Missy came over and was holding my hand. I began to cry as I asked the Doctor if she thought it was cancer. She said “yes”, then I asked her how sure she was and she said she was 90% sure, but the biopsy would confirm her diagnosis. Now I don’t know about you, but the way I figure it, any Doctor would have to be nuts to tell you they were 90% sure about anything, unless they were 110% sure. I was still crying at this point and Missy was still holding my hand and patting my back. Dr. Guterrez said it looked like a small tumor and we had caught it early. Both Dr. G and Missy were so kind and compassionate they spoke to me gently and offered lots of encouragement. I have heard several cases where people were just dumped on by the doctor or nurse who told them they had cancer. I guess I got lucky to have two such kind compassionate people break the news to me.
Dr. G performed the biopsy right there on the ultrasound table. They numbed me up with a shot of Lidocaine, made a couple of small incisions and did a “needle asperation” of the lump and of two lymph nodes in the armpit. The doctor told me I would hear from Dr. Mino with the results in a couple of days. They stitched up the incisions, bandaged me up and I got dressed.
I was stunned as I left the office and got into my car. I started up my car but just sat in the parking lot crying. I could not pull myself together. I mean, come on!, a single mothers worst nightmere, “CANCER”!! Well I couldn’t just sit in the parking lot all day crying, and since Jacob was home sick with my niece Ashlee, I decided to to go to my Sisters hair salon. I walked in the back door of the salon to find several ladies sitting in the chairs. Jes was shampooing a client and I walked up to her and told her I needed to talk to her when she had a minute. I must still have looked pretty upset because her first reaction was to ask “What happened?!” “Who’s hurt? What’s the matter?!” I told her I needed to talk to her in private, so one of the girls finished shampooing her client. We went out the back door to the parking lot and she said “what’s going on?” I told her “I have breast cancer!” and began to cry all over again. She put her arms around me and started to cry too. I told her what the Doctor said about it being a small tumor and catching it early. We talked a bit longer and then we tried to pull ourselves together. We went back into the shop and I sat in the kitchen for a while to calm down.
Jes finished up with her client and came in to check on me. I had calmed down some by then and she sat with me a while longer and talked. She called home and told Ashlee I would be home in a little while. I stayed for a while longer and some of the girls at the shop came in to talk to me. One of the Distributors came in, gave me a hug, and told me he was sure everything would be okay. Jes and I talked about it and decided to wait until after Christmas to tell the family what was going on. I did not want to spoil everyones holiday with worry when nothing could be done about it until after the New Year anyway.
