Cancer.
The word itself can inflict so much fear in a person. It did to me.I didn’t want to have cancer.
My mom had breast cancer and she barely avoided chemotherapy, and as I felt that lump in my right breast all that fear came rushing into my head.
I wasn’t ready for my whole life to get turned upside down from something as deadly as cancer. I didn’t want cancer. I didn’t want to go through the fight that many men and women have gone through and lost. My hair, my boobs, the chance of having kids, they could all be gone in a few months. I wasn’t ready.
I ran to my mom, I saw it in her eyes too. My thoughts and fears were being played out in her eyes as she immediatley told me that she was going to make a doctors appointment.
For that next month, the world felt like it stopped. No one said anything, we avoided the conversations and I’m not to sure how but the days continued to pass on no matter how much I didn’t want them to or how much I wanted them to hurry the hell up.
Then the pain started to develop in my nipple, feeling as sharp as a needle diging into my skin. I tried to make it go away as i held my boob in my hand trying to rub out the pain but it only would temporarily stop the pain. I would always return within minutes and I would be searching to release the pain again.
Finally, I got to see the doctors. They confirmed that there was a lump and due to my family history of multiple breast cancer, they didn’t want to take chances. I went to the specialist and he told me that it was worth checking out, so I had to get a sonogram. Sitting in the waiting room, waiting for what seemed like hours is anything but conforting. My mind was racing:
Were people staring at me? Did they guess why I was there? Did they know? Please stop staring. Seriously people stop staring. What movie is playing? Why are they playing a movie about cancer? What the hell is wrong with these people? Who plays a cancer movie in a waiting room? These bastards. Can my legs stop shaking? Shit, now my hands are shaking. Why am I shaking so much? Calm down! When Are they going to let me in? How long have I been here? Only 10 minutes?! Are you kidding me? I thought an hour passed. Geez, they are taking forever.
“Janelle Kluz”
FINALLY!
I wanted to cry. The first time I thought I would get a sonogram, I figured it was going to be when I was pegnant for the first time, instead it’s to see if I have breast cancer. I tried to laugh with the nurse, but they came out like I was choking and on the verge of tears. I stop trying. These were the pictures:
These imagines show you that there is not only one but two lumps one on top of eachother. The results from the office said that they look to be benign, meaning non cancerous, but to be sure it might be better to take them out due to my family history.
Just hearing the words benign kept me calm till the surgury. I honestly don’t remember the whole time I was in the hospital. I was super dehydrated and they had trouble finding my vein for the anesthesia. I tried to stay calm. I tried to make conversation with my mom as she sat next to me but after a while when that no longer worked, I tried to read. Soon the medicine began working turning me loopy and I began dozing off. I didn’t even make it to the surgury table before I knocked out. I later woke up back in a hospital bed, without an ounce of memory of the surgury. The only thing that allowed me to know that time had passed was the after effects of the anesthesia, causing me to shake back into reality. With my body shaking like crazy, the nurses rolled me down in a wheelchair and a blanket to my car where my mom pulled up. For those next two days, I was completely out of everything and slept.
It was the most peaceful sleep since I no longer had to worry. I did not have cancer. The lumps were in fact benign.
****
About 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime and in some cases early detection could mean life or death. Please learn from all those that have fought or are still fighting and make sure to get checked either by a doctor or a self exam.
For more information or ways to carry out a self exam please look at:
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/testing/types/self_exam/bse_steps