my diagnostic mammogram

My Diagnostic Mammogram

I had a diagnostic mammogram today. Actually, she took several views

saying her job was to make the 'spot' disappear. It didn't disappear.

It's a small spot, round like a pea. I can't feel it yet, although it

does hurt a bit, if I press on it long enough. Well, if I press long

enough, any place will begin to hurt.

My husband is a family doctor. He came home for lunch today, after

calling and not being able to get through to me: I was on the phone

with my sister. I was pleased that he came home to check on me. I

thought he'd forgotten about my appointment. After lunch, he talked

with a General Surgeon at OU to question why it is necessary to have

an ultrasound rather than go right to checking the cells to discover

if they are cancerous or not. I don't remember exactly why, but the GS

said that is the correct next step.

So, the waiting game begins. Next the radiologist checks today's

pictures with some taken two years ago, (I missed having a mammogram

last year). If it looks suspicious to him, then next will come the

ultrasound. I'll hear something back from my doctor's office next

week.

This really impacts life. I know I sound like a whinner, but it's hard

to concentrate on regular life with something like this hanging 'out

there' unsettled.

I hurt for my sister. The doctors knew immediately upon seeing her

mammogram that she had cancer. It must have looked quite messy on the

screen. Teresa knew she had a rather large lump in her breast for more

than a year. She just never went to have it checked out. I also feel

responsible for that. Perhaps if I had insisted that she 'go to the

doctor now and have it looked at!' then, perhaps she would have done

so. Jeff told me that is 'co-dependency' and 'sick.' Well, maybe.

Except, that it's always been that way with my sister. Either mom

(before she died) or me -since mom died- have had to direct her to do

those sorts of things. I feel it's partially my fault that she didn't

have it checked out because I didn't sound the alarm. I said things

like, 'I had a benign tumor removed years ago' and 'no one in our

family had breast cancer.' I was wrong. Our mother's sister had a

masectomy in her 40s. We thought her doctor was just 'knife happy' and

didn't know what he was doing. She didn't have to have chemo

treatments and the cancer never came back. My grandfather's sister

died of breast cancer in her 40s or 50s. His paternal grandmother had

cancer, listed in the 1880s census report under chronic illness. And

there are other's in the family with different types of cancer, mostly

colon cancer, I believe.

Teresa had her 3rd chemo treatment this week. So far, she isn't as

sick as she was for the last one. Do people survive cancer that moves

into the lymp nodes?

I hate cancer. It feels like a personal enemy. This morning as I left

the clinic, I remembered what I was doing at this same time 16 years

ago: My first child was born in Chicago 16 years ago today. My mom was