Another Ordinary Day

Today I thought I had cancer.  For three hours today I thought I had cancer.  I was on Facebook and blogging, completely avoiding the piles of laundry and heaps of dishes in the sink, when I got a phone call.  It was the lovely technician I had met on Friday during my first ever mammogram.  I say she was lovely because she was just that, lovely.  As she was pushing and shoving parts of my anatomy which are too little to be pushed and shoved, we talked and talked.  She really made me comfortable, even as I uncomfortably stood naked from the waist up talking to her.  Stephanie was lovely.

So when Stephanie called I didn't really panic.  Maybe I forgot something, maybe she wanted to meet me for coffee, maybe...what?  "Blah, blah, abnormality, blah, blah, want you to come in today, blah, blah..."  Uhhh.  Panic!  I told her I would call her as soon as I could arrange something for my children.

I call Steve who is the voice of reason.  Calm, completely controlled, and me losing my mind.  I call my friend Nancy who completely steps up to the plate to help me with the babies and LA.  What a relief!  I call Stephanie right back and will be there in two hours.  Lovely on one end of the phone, panic on the other.

For the next hour I am a bundle of nerves.  Thankfully I had the aforementioned chores to do, so I took my nervous energy and went to work.  Laundry, done.  Dishes, done.  Still panicking.  The trip back to the hospital was full of panic as well, almost surreal.  There was billowing smoke from a fire in the next town and fire trucks screaming down the road.  About three miles further, there was a car completely flipped over and turned around on the side of the road with people stopping to help but no emergency vehicles yet.  Although I took notice of these things I felt more like I was watching it all on a movie, completely disconnected.

The thoughts going through my mind went from denial (I'm 37 years old, I nursed all of my children, I don't have a family history of breast cancer) to logistics (I need to be home by 2:45 to pick up my other children from the bus stop or I can call my neighbor) to bargaining (I can have a surgery but no chemo, I can have chemo but I don't want to die).  My kids faces, the babies (oh! the babies!), my husband, our family, I am so blessed!

I sat in the waiting room and looked around.  Another woman had the same "special" paperwork I had. I thought, "She looks healthy, hopefully I look as healthy as her."  Stephanie came out and called me to the room.  I know she does this all the time, but she made me feel like a special case with her reassuring words and calmness.  She remembered lots of things about me from Friday and we chatted.  She told me I would have results before I left today, which relived me tremendously.  I asked her about "Call Backs", the name they used for my case.  She said about 10% of the patients get called back but only about 10% of those are cancer.  She pushed and shoved even harder this time to take the pictures and when she was done she took them down to the radiologist to read them.

I think she was gone for about five minutes, maybe ten, but those were some L-O-N-G minutes.  I sat in my hospital gown waiting for news which would change my life.  I thought of my father and the waiting game he played.  I remembered one particularly grueling wait for brain scan results and the worry he had for possibly being "incompetent".  Those results took a couple of hours, other tests took a couple of days, so torturing to his soul and the spirit!  I was fortunate with the couple of minutes I had to wait, completely terrified of what I faced.  As I heard her footsteps down the corridor, I don't think I breathed.  She walked in with a big grin and I knew everything would be okay.

As I walked out of the hospital, feeling very fortunate, I wondered about those who don't get such get news.  Cancer is such a ruthless and degrading disease, those recently diagnosed will have a terrible fight.  Many will win, many will not.

So on this very ordinary day I was given another one of those "reality checks" to remember how fortunate I am.  I don't have cancer and I am so blessed.  What a wonderful ordinary day!  Now, to figure out if the fire and the car crash were real or just my imagination, and what it all means...