Regardless of how many years I let lapse between them, I got the scare of my life that day at school and the next 24 hours of waiting for the second mammogram to be done were the longest ones ever. The verdict came back clear the next day but the last thing my doctor admonished me to do was to be sure and go back in November of 2015 for a follow up one. I promised him that I would.
And I meant it.
I have not yet found a doctor here in Burkburnett but sooner or later I will. I have circled November 23rd of this year on the calendar as a reminder to me that I need to have my yearly checkup then. No excuses. Really. No excuses.
I am repeating this post again today and hope that if any women out there are putting off having theirs done that they might read it and realize that it's just best to go in and have it done. The discomfort is minimal and the results could end up saving your life.
It was during my lunch hour that I got the call from the doctor's office that something came back suspicious on the X-ray and that there was an area that needed to be looked at again. I was reminded that day of how important it is to have friends who will voluntarily step in and pick up the slack. My good friends and co-teachers Mary and Nikki saw my distress and realized that something was really bad. They lifted me up that day and would have taken my 20 children in with their own if I would have needed them to. I never forgot their compassion and kindness. It takes a village to raise up adults as well as children.
"The 20" saw me crying and even though I couldn't tell them what it was about, they loved me just the same. Little children are smart, perhaps smarter than we will ever know. In overwhelming sadness I carried on for the rest of the day and late in the afternoon on the next day I went back in for the repeat mammogram.
Thankfully, it was ok.
If you care to read the post from now 8 months ago, it is found below. Please feel free to share this with anyone you know who might be hesitant about getting their mammogram. Don't be afraid like I was because one thing is for sure.
Early detection can save you.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014
~it is with regret~
Once back in the days of "old lefty", when my arm was in about cast #3 of a gazillion casts in all, I remember a time when I had an "awakening". It was a personal one and it had to do with the swollen and badly bruised fingers of my left hand. I was feeling sorry for myself and I remember that my son came in as I was getting into bed and helped to pull all of the covers up about me. I couldn't even do that for myself and the very idea that I had to rely upon another person for the simplest of things really was disheartening to me. I lay there in bed, left arm propped up on a pillow so the pain was not as bad. "Stupid broken arm anyways!", I remember thinking to myself and just at that very moment I glanced over at my fingers as they stuck out of the baby blue, long arm cast I was wearing. For the first time since the whole "I think I'm gonna try to jump that curb on my bicycle today" ordeal began, I began to take pity upon those poor fingers and the broken up appendage they were still attached to. I reached over with my right hand and held onto those five fingers and gave them a hug. As I did so, they sent me a message and the message I got that night now over 3 years ago was this.....
"We may be broken and pretty messed up right now but we are still a part of you."
I went in for a long overdue mammogram the day before Thanksgiving. It had been a while. Ok, Ok. It had been a long while. 7 years of a long while. For my own reasons and as the result of a very bad experience with the last one I had, I'd pretty much written off ever doing one again. But at the encouragement of my doctor, husband and several good friends, I signed up for one during the last of November. It really wasn't a bad experience at all this time and the technician who did it for me knew exactly how to take care of it. I felt comfortable, well as comfortable as you can while getting the dickens squeezed out of you, and in the end was glad that I had went. All that I had to do was to wait for it to be read and once I got the letter saying everything was fine, I'd be home free.
The letter did not come.
Today at school, I got a message on my phone during lunch time and found out the reason why I had not heard of the results. The radiologist had found a lump in my left breast and they were scheduling me for an ultra sound tomorrow afternoon. I was standing in the hallway at school when I got the word and I had to ask for it to be repeated many times before it sunk in that they were really talking to me. And when it finally sunk in that they had the "correct patient", I did the only thing I knew to do.
I cried.
I was not going to write of this tonight, in fact I wasn't even sure that I would write of it at all. But a dark cloud has been hanging over my head since I heard the news of what they found and fear has settled in. One thing I have always known about this blog of mine is the therapeutic value it has always provided in times of great need and stress. Back in the days right after my accident, I would sit at the computer and type one-handed for hours on end as I worked out the stress and sorrow that I was feeling after being so badly hurt. I would pound away on those keys until I felt better. It helped, a lot. Tonight it has really been a blessing to be able to sit down and write out my thoughts and every once in a while, it seems like the black clouds would really love to part. I'm so thankful for that.
Tomorrow afternoon at about 3:00 they are going to the ultrasound and take a deeper look into the lump. There are a couple of things they might find, perhaps a cyst or maybe a tumor. Right now they don't know and the whole purpose of this second procedure is to determine exactly what it is. Time will tell.
And so we wait.
I was very foolish to let this go for so long. 7 years is actually pretty inexcusable and it didn't take me much time to realize that they were not kidding. If you are so inclined, please would you pray for me tomorrow? The "Good Book" says that we can pray specifically for something and if I were going to ask you to do that, I'd ask you to pray that I wouldn't be afraid, no matter what. Thank you for so doing. Much obliged to you.
I wasn't going to post this. It was never in my plans yet somewhere tonight there is going to be another woman reading it who may have been just like me. I would venture to say that there are plenty of women out there who "religiously" get their scheduled yearly exams. There are just as many women who do not. To those women, I would say "Please do not wait. Don't be like me." I'd be the first to admit that mammograms are a "pain in the behind" but do it anyway. You won't regret it if you do. You might regret it if you do not.
Good night everyone out there, dear friends and family. Kansas, no matter what, I will see you soon. Love to you all.
I have the worst luck with things on the left side of my body! The right side is hanging in there though, picking up the slack for the left side.
"We may be broken and pretty messed up right now but we are still a part of you."
I went in for a long overdue mammogram the day before Thanksgiving. It had been a while. Ok, Ok. It had been a long while. 7 years of a long while. For my own reasons and as the result of a very bad experience with the last one I had, I'd pretty much written off ever doing one again. But at the encouragement of my doctor, husband and several good friends, I signed up for one during the last of November. It really wasn't a bad experience at all this time and the technician who did it for me knew exactly how to take care of it. I felt comfortable, well as comfortable as you can while getting the dickens squeezed out of you, and in the end was glad that I had went. All that I had to do was to wait for it to be read and once I got the letter saying everything was fine, I'd be home free.
The letter did not come.
Today at school, I got a message on my phone during lunch time and found out the reason why I had not heard of the results. The radiologist had found a lump in my left breast and they were scheduling me for an ultra sound tomorrow afternoon. I was standing in the hallway at school when I got the word and I had to ask for it to be repeated many times before it sunk in that they were really talking to me. And when it finally sunk in that they had the "correct patient", I did the only thing I knew to do.
I cried.
I was not going to write of this tonight, in fact I wasn't even sure that I would write of it at all. But a dark cloud has been hanging over my head since I heard the news of what they found and fear has settled in. One thing I have always known about this blog of mine is the therapeutic value it has always provided in times of great need and stress. Back in the days right after my accident, I would sit at the computer and type one-handed for hours on end as I worked out the stress and sorrow that I was feeling after being so badly hurt. I would pound away on those keys until I felt better. It helped, a lot. Tonight it has really been a blessing to be able to sit down and write out my thoughts and every once in a while, it seems like the black clouds would really love to part. I'm so thankful for that.
Tomorrow afternoon at about 3:00 they are going to the ultrasound and take a deeper look into the lump. There are a couple of things they might find, perhaps a cyst or maybe a tumor. Right now they don't know and the whole purpose of this second procedure is to determine exactly what it is. Time will tell.
And so we wait.
I was very foolish to let this go for so long. 7 years is actually pretty inexcusable and it didn't take me much time to realize that they were not kidding. If you are so inclined, please would you pray for me tomorrow? The "Good Book" says that we can pray specifically for something and if I were going to ask you to do that, I'd ask you to pray that I wouldn't be afraid, no matter what. Thank you for so doing. Much obliged to you.
I wasn't going to post this. It was never in my plans yet somewhere tonight there is going to be another woman reading it who may have been just like me. I would venture to say that there are plenty of women out there who "religiously" get their scheduled yearly exams. There are just as many women who do not. To those women, I would say "Please do not wait. Don't be like me." I'd be the first to admit that mammograms are a "pain in the behind" but do it anyway. You won't regret it if you do. You might regret it if you do not.
Good night everyone out there, dear friends and family. Kansas, no matter what, I will see you soon. Love to you all.
I have the worst luck with things on the left side of my body! The right side is hanging in there though, picking up the slack for the left side.
No comments:
Post a Comment