In a Moment

My day was a lot of fragmented moments. I had my annual midwifery/OB/GYN exam, tentative plans to go to the pool with friends, and the basic mommy stuff.

I dropped Diva Child off to play with a friend while I took the baby along to my MD appointment. Just another thing to check off my list before moving on to another task. I was happy to see my sweet midwife who has seen me through both of my pregnancies and births.

As she was chatting with me and doing a breast exam she stopped. She made a face. And she palpated some more. She asked me if it was tender, and I said it wasn't. She showed me what she felt, and indeed, a lump.

The rest of the appointment is rather a blur. I was given a few pamphlets about breast health put out by a local women's health cancer center. I was given MD orders for ultrasound and a mammogram. They made an appointment for me while I was in the office for later that afternoon.

I don't know that I can describe the combination of stunned shock, fear, and 'talking myself down' I was doing in the few hours between when I left the office and arrived at the radiology place.

I am only thirty years old. I am healthy. No one in my family has cancer. I don't have any risk factors for breast cancer. I had my kids in my 20's. I breastfed both children and am still nursing my son. This can not be anything. I am a mother. I have to take care of my kids, I can not be sick....

I pretty much rolled all of that around my brain all day feeling really grateful that I was going to be seen the same day. I felt stupid for not knowing there was a lump in my own breast. How could I not feel that? I felt shitty that I felt entitled to be healthy. I shouldn't have cancer. Who the hell deserves cancer anyway....I think every last women who has felt a lump in her breast must go through all the reasons she shouldn't be sick.

So I had my mammogram and ultrasound. I have calcifications in one breast. It doesn't seem to be anything all that alarming or scary. It isn't a 'mass', it is a small group of calcifications that may go away, may change, or may just stay the same. I go back to repeat the same tests in 6 months to see if there are any changes.

I am rattled. I am fine. I did not like the places my brain was going when the fear of all of this started creeping up my throat. I want to be very old and tired when it is time to leave this earth. I want to mother my children into adulthood and love on their children.


As an aside, getting a mammogram was no.big.deal. I got very freaked out while waiting because there were all kinds of directions about how uncomfortable I might feel afterwards, how their may be some discoloration from the compression. That I could take Tylenol for the discomfort. They were initially reluctant to do the mammogram today due to the fact that I am still nursing. Lactating breast tissue is especially dense and hard to photograph, and supposedly very uncomfortable.

I was really nervous when she took the first image....I kept waiting for it to hurt. When I realized she was moving the machine around for a new image I nervously laughed out loud and said 'that's it??!'

Really, thank God that's it....