This is Easter week! I have so much to be thankful for! Yes the past year and a half was challenging but Easter always gives a hope for life and happiness. In my mind Easter is one of the purest holidays. It is a chance for renewal and hope. This week will also mark my 9 month appointment, since chemo, with my oncologist as well as my 6 week appointment, since my last reconstruction surgery, with my plastic surgeon. I thought I would post about how I discovered my cancer and the beginning of my journey.
Let me start this by saying that I hardly ever go to the doctor. I keep up with my yearly mammograms, gynecologist and eye appointments but beyond that I was never really sick. In October of 2021 I was having some breast pain. I work at a school that certifies CNAs and pharmacy techs. Most of the staff is comprised of nurses. I described my pain and everyone agreed it was hormones. I was 53 and in really good shape. I also had a sometime period. I was still on birth control pills because we really didn't think I had completely gone through menopause. In November the pain only got worse. I went to my gynecologist. He said, "you had a clear mammogram in April so that can't be it", "I don't feel anything" and "cancer doesn't hurt". He told me to take Advil/Aleve. He also stated that I probably pulled a muscle or strained something from working out. Trusting him I followed his instructions. Sleeping became difficult, I was becoming more and more tired and the pain did not go away.
Christmas was coming so I pushed everything to the back of my mind. I remember the pain was starting to come in shooting waves. I would just take a minute and breathe and eventually it would go away. In the back of my mind I kept thinking that no one talked about hormones being this painful. Fast forward to Christmas Day, my absolute favorite, holiday. I had all of my family, my husband's family, and my middle son's girlfriend and her parents at my house to spend the day and celebrate. I wanted everything to be perfect and it was. I do remember ironing my shirt and getting a shooting pain in my right breast. I felt and definitely thought I felt something. It was not round, as I has been told, it was oblong and weirdly shaped. I had my husband feel it and he said maybe I feel something but it is not round. I also noticed dimpling in my right breast. This had not been there before. Again, I put this in the back of my mind.
The following week I called my gynecologist again and set up an appointment for January 3, 2022. I really felt something was off but I would not let my mind go there. That morning was the first day teachers reported back, because I work at a teaching facility with nurses I let them feel what I felt. They all said they felt something but couldn't tell what it was. I left work, went to the appointment, only to have the doctor say, " You again?", "You never come in between appointments". I again described the pain I was feeling. The words that came next, I will never forget, "Will it appease you if I order an ultrasound?". This was my doctor of 15 years. He knew I was not a complainer. I was shook and upset that he was dismissing my pain. I told him "YES! order the ultrasound ". I was also informed because it was not an emergency it may take awhile to get in.
I am a "get it done, now" very "impatient" person. The next morning I received a call that said there was an opening on January 28th for an ultrasound. I agreed and hung up. I immediately called back and asked if they could put me on a cancellation list to get in sooner. I was now taking 12 or more Aleve pills a day or some extra strength ibuprofen to get through the pain.
The next day I woke up and went to work....as soon as I arrived the ultrasound place called and said they had a cancellation, but I would have to be there in 15 minutes!! My boss said GO! I went and that appointment changed my "Practically Perfect" life forever.
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