My husband said all of the right things on the phone.
At least to the best of my memory. He offered to come get me at the Radiologist clinic. I said no. He told me everything was going to be OK. I smiled and nodded through the tears that were starting to come (he did not see that part).
Looking back, it probably would have been best if he came and picked me up. I’m really not sure how I got home. Thank goodness your mind can do things on autopilot when it is otherwise occupied (although I don’t recommend it).
I got home. My husband picked up the girls and he made dinner. Yes, I am very blessed by the man in my life.
Doctors can work quickly when it is necessary. Somehow I got an appointment with a surgeon within the next few days (not sure exactly the date, but it was quick). My husband and I drove there together, prepared to hear whatever news the doctor would give us.
After an examination and a review of the the radiologists report, the doctor told us….It feels like a Fibroadenoma. It is very common.
You probably could have heard the collective breaths go out of our mouths. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath. But really, I had probably been holding it since the ultrasound.
The surgeon gave us some options. One option was to do nothing and monitor it to see if it changed any over the next few months. Options 2 and 3 were a needle biopsy or a lumpectomy to remove the lump.
My husband and I decided that a lumpectomy would be best. Really, I don’t know why we made that choice at the time. But somehow we did. Now that I knew I had a lump that wasn’t supposed to be there, and I could feel it, since this was now the fourth person to poke and prod that area, I thought it was best to go ahead and remove it.
The surgery was scheduled for October 8, 2003 to have the lump removed.
When we got home, with the breathing and heart rates back to a normal pace, we did what every good person with Internet does. We searched online for Fibroadenoma. We read that it was a noncancerous tumor that was a smooth, well defined shape and moved easily under the skin when touched. That was exactly what the surgeon said he felt during the exam. Another collective sigh.
This was going to be a walk in the park. There was really no reason to call the family and tell them I have a noncancerous tumor that I’m going to have removed. There would be plenty of time for that later after everything was done.
The morning of October 8th we went to the hospital with the full expectation that the lump would be removed and there would be nothing else to worry about.
We got to the hospital and checked in at the Day Surgery clinic. (I’m still amazed at what medical procedures can be performed and they just send you home later that afternoon.) My mom and my husband kissed me and I dutifully went with the surgical nurse to get prepped for surgery.
To my knowledge everything went as expected during the surgery. In fact, the doctor even came out and told my husband and my mom that the lump looked exactly as he expected it to look. He did not think it was cancer. But hospital procedure meant sending the tissue to pathology just to confirm everything.
So on October 8th the tissue was sent to pathology and I was sent home. Everything was going to be fine, and life as we knew it would continue.
July 2003 – 3 months before our world changed.
Or so we thought….
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