I Want My Mummy

Ok, so the mummy jokes are wearing thin, but my chest is bound up tightly and it’s starting to hurt like hell.

The procedure went fine, the doctor actually was able to remove both lumps rather than simply taking samples and she got them both through the same incision. This is great news - I don’t ever have to feel them again and wonder if these are new ones or the old ones. The actual time spent at the clinic was just fine - the procedure actually was less uncomfortable than getting a filling at the dentist. I will have the pathologist’s report early tomorrow, hopefully.

It took a good long time for the numbing stuff to wear off but now that it has, holy shit.  And the worst thing about it is that I can’t hold my daughter. She wants me to and I can’t, unless Jake hands her to me and I’m sitting down. We just tried a team approach to story time/bed time, where I held Bridget on my lap and Jake knelt by us and held the book (so I wouldn’t have to use my right arm) but I read to her. It worked ok for a bit but then she wanted to climb on me so I had to tag out. That about killed me - walking out of her room as she cried for me.

Tomorrow, Jake has to go out of town. SXSW is one of his biggest events of the year and it would take something bigger than this for me to ask him to stay home. Jake’s lovely sister is coming over during the day to do my heavy lifting during the day, and then my parents will come in the late afternoon to take on dinner and bath/bedtime lifting for me. Hopefully Saturday I’ll be ok to pick her up again.

Sorry that’s all the update I have. I’m sure I’ll have more to say tomorrow when I’m not in so much pain. Very soon I’ll pop a narcotic and head to bed.

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Stowaways

Apparently, no one gave my doctor the script for today. See, I was going to go in, she was going to give me a quick clinical grope and pronounce that my lump was nothing to worry about. And while she said her lines according to the script, her stage direction needed a bit of brushing up because she then sent me directly (do not pass go, do not collect $200) for a mammogram and an ultrasound “just to be sure.” She also turned my right boob into a treasure map, with x marking the spot, a little help for the radiology folks.

OK, I can handle this. I was able to get my mind around it on the way to the imaging place. How can anyone be sure that it’s all ok if you can’t see it? So no big deal. I went to this amazing place right by my house. It was so much better than a cold, clinical hospital. I remember the place I had my HSG done, at the hospital where I gave birth, and it was cold, scary and impersonal. This was the opposite. Everyone was so kind and sensitive. I had never had a mammogram before, obviously due to my age, so I was a bit nervous but it wasn’t bad at all. It was uncomfortable, but definitely no worse than an annual gyno exam or even a dental cleaning. So the mammogram was done and then I was taken into an ultrasound room where the doctor came to do my ultrasound. She was such a warm person, I can totally see why she felt the need to create this place.

She explained that either the lump was going to be fluid-filled or it would be solid. Fluid-filled was the best we could hope for, as that meant it was absolutely benign. Solid would be a bit more troublesome because, while chances were that it was perfectly benign, the possibility exists that it could be malignant. And with that, we got started.

Turns out I have two lumps, side by side, one smaller than the other. And they are both solid.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit. That’s not what I wanted to hear.

I know that I have a 99% shot that these stowaways on the S.S. Mammary will be nothing of consequence. I know all about the many types of benign cysts that can live in women’s breasts. My mom had a fibroid cyst removed from her breast in 1987 and these things tend to run in families and can increase with caffeine consumption. I know all that. But see, there was this script. It was in my head. And in it, I got sent home from the Gyno with a pat on the head and praise for coming in right away, but a guarantee that I had nothing to worry about. Instead, I ended up with a mammogram and a week’s worth of worry before I can get in for a needle biopsy to make sure.

I’ll admit freely that I’m scared. I’m not scared of dying. That’s not on the radar screen. What I’m scared of is surgery, chemo and radiation. Sickness, weakness, losing my hair, losing my breasts, being thrown into early menopause, having Bridget witness all of it. Those things scare me to death. Those are the thoughts that will keep me awake for the next nine or ten nights until I get the word back from the pathology lab. I need distraction so these thoughts cannot overtake my life. I have a long time to wait and a little girl who needs me to care for her. I can’t curl up in a corner and cry.

As for the stowaways, I think they need names. So far all I’ve come up with is Dr. Evil and Mini-Me, but I’m not loving it. Anyone else have any suggestions?

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