This Day in History

What I have today isn't nearly as happy or exciting as the rest of my announcements this week, but it's important for me to record all of the parts of this journey, if for no other reason than to remind myself that things are only getting better.

After my doctor's appointment at the end of January 2007, I had been able to push the breast lump and ensuing mammogram to the back of my mind. As the day approached for my appointment, I started to get a little nervous, but for the most part I was pretty sure I was invincible. The first available appointment wasn't at the radiology center near me, so I headed out to an unfamiliar side of town to another center. I was immediately out of place after check in. Most of the women waiting could have been my grandmother, only a couple young enough to be my mother. Only the technicians were in my age group.

I was shown back to a changing room and given a little cubby to change into a gown and hang my clothes, then sit and wait. My turn came pretty quickly. I showed the technician where the lump was and she taped a little bb on the spot to mark it for the mammogram. She took a couple of different angles and told me I could go back and wait until the radiologist was ready to do my ultrasound. I had just enough time to go to the bathroom and she was back to collect me again. But we weren't going to get an ultrasound yet. They saw something on the mammogram and wanted to get some better views.

At this point I knew something was wrong. They knew it, too, because everyone started being way too nice. The additional views were taken and I was shown right into the ultrasound room. It didn't take the doctor long to find the lump on that machine either. She told me that I might want to turn my head so she didn't hit me in the jaw with the wand, but I didn't mind getting bumped. Once I saw that black monster on the screen, she would have had to strap my head down to keep me from looking at it. She clicked around and took lots of measurements and views from different angles. But she was being really quiet and I could feel myself approaching full on panic.

Then she was done. She wiped off the goo, had me sit up and told me that she was going to go dictate her report and immediately call my doctor, who would call me later that afternoon. She never said cancer, but she did say we'd need to schedule a biopsy. With that encouraging news, I was sent back to the land of little old ladies to dress. I was called back once again, to talk with someone while they prepared my films for me to take with me. The first available appointment for the type of biopsy I needed was held for me -- it was almost two weeks away.

I can't remember if I called Mom or Dad first, but I'd worked myself into a pretty good lather as I told them what little information I knew. This combined with the fact that I wasn't familiar with the area got me lost pretty quickly. Somehow I made it back to my office, where I immediately removed the films from their neat little envelope. I'm a smart girl, surely I would know if I were looking at cancer, right? Giving me those films was a huge mistake because as soon as I made it back to my office, I was Googling images of breast cancer and comparing it to my mammograms. This is not a productive use of time or energy. Don't do it.

Later that afternoon, my favorite nurse finally called from my doctor's office. They had received the report and it indicated that the lump was "highly suspicious for malignancy." Ever the optomist I asked if that was just a phrase they threw around whenever they wanted you to get followup. Unfortunately, it wasn't something they said lightly. Dr. O. wanted me to have the biopsy and they would see if they could find anyone to do it earlier. I asked Margo to read me the report since I couldn't stop by to pick up a copy until the morning.

There is a score assigned to mammograms by radiologists to help categorize lumps and abnormalities. 0 is perfectly normal; 5 is highly suspicious of malignancy. I was a 5. Another quick Google search told me that 95% of 5s ended up being cancer. So I still had a 5% chance of escaping this. At this point in time, Internet access should have been cut off at home and in my office. There's a lot of scary stuff on the web. Since they were unable to get me in earlier for a biopsy, I had 12 days to search and read and scare myself to death.

Outside of my family, I only told two of my girlfriends. I didn't want to be the girl who cried wolf. I didn't even want my sister to know the details of the situation because she was pregnant and I didn't want any extra stress on her. Plus, I wanted everyone to stay focused on the happiness of a baby instead of the fear of what I was dealing with.

The next 12 days were some of the slowest of my life. I remember every detail of those days...driving to Charlottesville after a big ice storm for a basketball game, going to church with my grandfather, sitting at my staff retreat and thinking I have cancer and none of these people know. I didn't realize that the anticipation would put me in a place of near frenzy after the biopsy.

Today isn't my official "cancerversary." That doesn't come for another two weeks. But today is the day that I knew I had cancer. And that's one of the scariest things I've ever had to know about myself.