Check It Out

frosted window

I interrupt my waiting to bring you an important message:

It's not a new message; it's one I heeded, it's one Kate heeded.  You can probably guess where I'm headed.

Women:  know your breasts.  Know their lumps their bumps their sags.  And then, once you know them, check back in with them every so often - in bed, in the shower.  (Probably not in the supermarket checkout line, even if you are bored.  That sort of behavior is frowned upon.)  You're checking for something new.  A lump that doesn't feel like the other lumps.

I always wondered how you'd know.  Not to be too graphic or anything, but there were lumps and bumps all over in the tissue.  How was I supposed to tell this lump was different?  Well, now I know.  I still can't tell you exactly what was different about the cancerous lump - but I can tell you it WAS different.

And should you find that different lump, get it checked out.  Go to your doctor - they won't laugh at you for your suspicions, or yell at you for wasting their time if it turns out to be nothing.  (That's actually the preferred answer in these cases...)

Kate was too young to get mammograms; her tissue too dense for the machine to tell good from bad.  I was just due for mine; it would have shown had I made it to the appointment date.

Finding the lump, getting it checked before it has a chance to grow too big; spread too far - it's the difference between surgery and detours and...  I still don't like to think of the consequences of not having found it in time.

So, check it out.  It could save your life; it did mine.

back to our regularly scheduled waiting...

All the test results are in.  Hotel and operating rooms reserved.  Child care set up.  Car serviced and ready to make the trip.  I'm pretending to focus on work this week; in short spurts, it even works.  But the refrain of please-make-it-not-be-true runs futilely through my brain and even though I know it will be OK, I also know it's true-even-though-I-REALLY-don't-want-it-to-be.  And it sucks.

Keep us in your prayers, please.