Step 2 - The Consult

Tim came with me to the appointment with Dr Keeler (surgeon).  In a nutshell my mass/tumor/spot whatever you call it - is looking "highly suspicious" and is spiculated in shape.  I had never even heard that word before.  Basically it's pointy like a star.  In conversation he drew the three main shapes of tumors and this one tends to be cancer.  Biopsy to be scheduled and then back to visit with him a week later for the next step is the plan.  I really don't like limbo I have decided.

It's Nothing Until It's Something

It started innocent enough.  An appointment for a mammogram.  I have a couple before.  I have had a "come back in so we can take some more pictures" appointment before.  So, when I got the call a few days later that they wanted to take a few more pictures of my right breast I didn't think about it much.

Within an hour, it became something I am thinking about now.

It started with more specific views of an area up high on my breast.  Technician leaves room to consult with radiologist.  A few minutes later she is back.  Radiologist wants to have ultrasound images.  We walk down the hall and enter a room where the ultrasound technician is sitting and waiting for us.  I am impressed with their efficiency.  I lay on the bed and the technician begins scanning.
"Do you feel that?" she asks me.  Feel what? I am thinking. She says she can feel the lump under her wand.  She shows me where and I feel it.  I definitely feel "something".  But in all honesty I tell her that in a self breast exam I don't know that I would have thought twice about it.  It doesn't feel like the round pea or marble they talk about.  It feels "lumpy" and fibrous like the rest of the landscape of my breasts.  But I do feel it.
She leaves to go consult with the radiologist and while she is gone I start some symmetry research.  "Well crap."  The feel of the lump is not the same in both breasts.  The pit of my stomach is beginning to feel the weight of the moment.
Radiologist and tech walk back in.  "We have found something" he says.  He is sending records over to my doctor, recommending a biopsy and I should get a call in a few days.  He explains 3 different methods of sticking a needle or cutting into my breast (one sounds much like a car during an oil change).  After a few moments of question and answer he leaves.  I change out of my supergirl cape with the two snaps and go wander the aisles of Walmart.  My mind wanders as I try to remember the short list of groceries I had needed to pick up.
How am I going to start this conversation with Tim, the kids, friends, family?  I feel a responsibility to be calm and positive for them more than me.
It's nothing until it's something.

Us and Them

For whatever reason I haven't written for almost a year. It has been a very full year.  I have been thinking a lot lately about things going on in the world.  Poverty, war, greed, discrimination, genocide, and apathy.  I have decided that all these things have one thing in common at their center.  We are US and they are THEM.  Regardless of who is considered US or THEM.

As human beings it is more convenient to separate ourselves from others that we don't understand or with whom we feel uncomfortable being in the same room. This is even easier when those people look different, sound different, or live differently than us.  Easier if we can say "that would never be me." That we are worthy of love and compassion but they are not, because they are not us.  We don't want what we consider to be bad to look like us. That opens the possibility that we also have the same thread in our fabric. That we too are infallible, and imperfect, and not in control of our lives.
 
But for the grace of God, there go I.

I have noticed as well, that when we decide that we all are in this together. Regardless of what name we call God, what shade our skin, or what dialect we use to tell our families that we love them. That we begin to have a little more compassion.  A little more empathy.  A little more forgiveness. We reach out with an open hand instead of lashing out with a fist.  We choose to make the world better instead of protecting just our corner of it.  We see every other human being as simply a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, a father, or a mother.  We understand that it could just as easily in different circumstances be us on the other side of the evening news.  We know that a mother's sorrow is universal.   And we try each day to do what we can to make the lives we touch better than we found them.
Because we are all US, and we are all THEM.

Routine

I love sleeping in and not keeping to a schedule.  But in some weird way it is comforting to go back to a routine the majority of the week.  What is wrong with me?

Smooth Transitions

I am so thankful for things going smoothly. Especially when you are prepared the whole time for it to be really stressful and rocky. It is amazing how one little thing can put in motion a completely different outcome.

I Stand All Amazed

8/18/13
Almost 7 years ago on September 6 on the first Sunday of the month, my mom passed away less than two months after being diagnosed with cancer.  I  found out that she had died when I received a phone call at church from my sister. We were singing the hymn "I Stand All Amazed" when I was told there was a call for me from my sister about my mom. I knew immediately what that call was about. As I stood in the hallway and talked to my sister I could hear the rest of the song being sung in the background. It was the perfect song for the moment and for my mother.
Every year since she died, within a couple weeks of the anniversary of her death that song is on the program to be sung. Today it was the sacrament hymn. The person that chooses the songs each week has no idea of the meaning of that song for me, or of the timing of it being chosen for the program. And the person making those decisions has changed more than once in the last 7 years.  But every year it is a comforting reminder that my Heavenly Father knows me. Knows my sorrows, my worries, and my joy. And above all else that he loves me.
I do most definitely stand all amazed.
8/19/13 - When talking to my sisters about this, I learned that they had sung this song as well the same Sunday.  Although it held no special meaning for them to sing it. But in learning we had all been singing it at the same time it made it even more of a comfort that our Heavenly Father is aware of all of us.

Parental Tech Support

I am so thankful for friends and family that support and strengthen my job as a parent.  I love that they are open enough to share their own struggles with the hard days that come.  I think too many people think they stand alone, and assume that they are the only one with a child that is finding their own way.  Too many assume that everyone else's family has it all figured out.  We are all together in this job we call parenting.  We all started in the mail room, and we are each others tech support.  No one got the deluxe model that came with the multi-lingual instruction manual.  No one got a map, or GPS, or child raising app updates, or a lifetime warranty.  We just willingly got on the roller coaster and clicked the tiny metal buckle. Sometimes we wave our hands wildly trying to get someone's attention in hopes of having them stop the ride.  Sometimes we just close our eyes and hang on.  And in between those moments we have courage and faith that helps us let go and hold our hands above our heads and smile.  Because we know it is worth it.

 Our children take a little piece of our heart when they are born, and walk around with it for the rest of their lives.  And we don't ever get to put it back.