Last updated on September 30th, 2021 at 10:16 am
I remember that awkward silence after my doctor asked me, “When was the last time you did a self-breast exam”. The awkward silence was because she currently had her hand on my boob during my yearly “well woman” exam. I thought about lying and saying, “Why, all the time, thank you.” But my doctor knows me better than that so I was truthful and said, “Ummm…it’s been a while.” I noticed her calm quiet and asked hesitantly, “Why? Is there something wrong?” As all doctors are trained to do, she pat me on the shoulder and had me sit up before she calmly said, “Now…I’m not trying to alarm you but…I feel a mass.”
I. Feel. A. Mass.
Those words reverberated through my brain like a ping-pong ball leaving chaos in its wake. Of course the “I’m not trying to alarm you” did the exact opposite. I was in a near panic. I remained calm outwardly but inside I was quaking. One million thoughts ran through my brain. All centered on my family. What would my husband do? How would the children react? My mother…Oh God…my mother would lose her child and no parent should have to endure that! As all of these were racing around in circles. My doctor has an amazing bedside manner. She knew I was panicking and so she lightly set her hands on my shoulder and leaned forward until we were eye to eye. “A mass can mean a couple of different things, Deanna.” She still looked me right in the eye, very sure and calm. “It can be malignant, benign, or just…a mass…like a cyst.” She leaned back and sat in her little chair and went to jotting notes in her paperwork. I was to be scheduled for a mammogram as soon as possible.
I don’t remember the drive home. I don’t remember walking in the door. Or sitting down. I DO remember nearly breaking down when my husband asked me how the checkup went. All I could think was…this was supposed to be a routine checkup! I calmly explained the situation to him and did everything I could not to let him see I was freaking out on the inside. He nodded and said, “Okay, honey, it’s just as a precaution, right?” I nodded yes because at this point it really was just as a precaution.
I sat on pins and needles for an entire week waiting for that mammogram. I ran every worst case scenario through mind, each one scarier than the last. I think I may have even gone through the planning stages of how I was going to tell my family I had breast cancer.
You see…I lost an aunt and a great-grandmother to breast cancer. I KNEW what the disease could do to a person…to a family. It can be slow and take its time or it can be so fast you have no time to prepare and leave devastation in its path. To this day I don’t know which is worse, the quick or the slow.
The Waiting Room: It’s funny what you remember.
The walls were pink. Everything was pink. The imaging center was doused in Pepto-Bismol and I have to admit…it had a calming effect on me. I mean seriously…it’s kind of hard to panic when you are surrounded by butterflies and roses in every direction. The receptionist spoke calmly and quietly. Almost reverently, as if the rule was not to be loud and disturb the psyche of the patients that were probably flipping out about the impending mammogram. I listened to the serene music that drifted through the speakers and waited for my turn. There were three other women waiting and I’m sure we all had the same exact look on our faces. I was thinking in my head…the chances are ONE of us isn’t going to get good news. I was so sure it was going to be me.
My Smooshed Boobs
My name was called and I quickly gathered my things and followed the tech back to the room. Here everything was a muted white. Not as calming as the waiting area. I associate the color white with hospitals. She had me take off my top and bra and put on a gown and sit in front of a giant machine. My only thought was, WHY it took such a HUGE machine to check out the inside of my average-sized boobs?
Listen up folks…a mammogram is NOT comfortable. It’s not painful in the sense that your boob has been hacked off, but…there is some pressure. I was assured by the technician that the machines now are MUCH easier on us than the older ancient machines our grandmothers have used. I made a mental note to apologize to my older family members that had to deal with the dinosaur machines. If I was uncomfortable…I couldn’t imagine what they had to deal with. I should mention that I normally have a high tolerance for pain. I mean…I did go through childbirth. NOTHING is more painful than that. But squashed boobies are not on my bucket list of things to do for fun.
A few moments of arranging my boobs in a thousand different awkward positions and the tech said I could go put my clothes back on. She walked off and I did my thing and I think for some reason I was expecting her to come back in with that schooled “doctor” face that means you have cancer. But when she walked out and said, “That’s it…your doctor will be in touch.”
The Waiting Game Takes FOREVER
Wait…what?! I had to WAIT some more?? Clearly these people had NO understanding of the mental anguish I had suffered for an entire week! Of course I understood that the tests take time to process, and this person has to look at them before that person, and then another person has to look at the tests before they finally hand them over to your doctor. But for my mental well-being I needed to know STAT!
But alas…I did wait. And waited. And…waited some more. After about three weeks of NOTHING, I called my doctor. I asked if they had my results back and the receptionist said, “Let me get the doctor for you.” Um…well…that can’t be good… I thought, “They don’t tell you bad news over the phone do they?” I waited for a few minutes with my stomach in knots and my doctor picked up. I held my breath waiting for her to tell me I was going to have to do chemo or something drastic immediately. But all she said was, “Your results are back. It’s just a small cyst and should resolve itself. If it doesn’t or gets painful, call back and we’ll do something for it.”
I have never been so relived in my life. I was also furious! I waited for THREE weeks, thinking I was going to get THAT phone call any moment. I told my doctor that and she calmly told me that the imaging center should have explained that if I didn’t hear from my doctor…no news was good news. (I’ll mention here that the imaging center got a rather irate phone call from me when I hung up the phone with my doctor.)
I didn’t write this story to tell about the beginning of my breast cancer story. I don’t have one. I am writing to let every woman that reads this know…that very first mammogram is scary. It can scare the living daylights out of you. I took what probably should have been a simple trip to the imaging center and turned my insides upside-down with thoughts of negativity and doubt. For nearly a month I sat with dark cloud of dread over my head.
I can say that those four weeks I looked at my family in a whole new light. Nothing opens your eyes to the things that matter more than impending death. Life is busy. We all get caught up on the everyday. I appreciate my family every single day. But after that first mammogram I learned to appreciate them even more. Those little trivial things like mounting bills and tightly constrained schedules mean nothing when you’ve had your eyes opened to a possible life without your family.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For more information on breast health and early detection, visit www.breastcancer.org.
Deanna Burkett is multi-tasking mama of two year old boy/girl twins and teens and a wife of 19 years to a very patient husband. On any given day you can find her pinning her heart away at Twiniversity’s Pinterest page, saying howdy to a new member of Twiniversity’s Facebook page or message board, working on school work while she earns her double degree of History and English at Ashford University, catering to her teenagers every beck and call or chasing one or two naked babies around the house! Look for her on Facebook, Twitter or on Pinterest!
