Speed Bumps are Little Moments

You hit speed bumps in your life; little moments that make you step back, take a deep breath as you gain an extra bit of strength and determination that you didn't know was within you; you lean forward in an act of determination and you step out and go again.  I believe we all  have this within us. Most of us have this moment occur in many small ways each day and we may not even realize that it occurs, we are so used to "jumping in" and taking life on that it is second nature to us.  Some instances make us inhale deeper to stop the world from spinning for a moment.  Our breather is longer and deeper and we seem to be suspended in time as that first step moves us forward, in a way that causes our legs to carry us forward while our brain plays catch up.

I was called in to see Dr. B, my breast surgeon, yesterday.  His assistant asked me to come in on his behalf so that he could take a look at the redness that I was describing.  Amanda and Ali came with me and stayed with me.  Dr. B was honest, he didn't like what he saw but wasn't sure if it just happened to be an infection that happened to occur above the mass in my breast or something worse.

He decided to do a punch biopsy on the spot.  I will tell you first that Amanda, my college nursing student, said afterward that it was amazing.  From my vantage point, I would disagree.  I was given a shot of lidocaine and after a minute he performed the procedure.  Amanda will tell you it looked like he used a screw-type device.  I will tell you it felt, and looks, like I have a paper hole punch on the top of my breast.  He is rushing the lab for results and we should know by Thursday.

His concern... that the cancer has gone into my skin.  He said it is unlikely but there is a possibility that I have developed inflammatory breast cancer.  If this test comes back positive, all surgeries will be stopped and I will begin chemotherapy immediately.  It will be about six months until we could then look at the surgery again.  He has started me on a strong antibiotic and we now will wait and see.  In the meantime, Ali was able to do her first art project of the summer.  Dr. B gave us a special marker and Ali traced the redness with a purple marking pen.  If the redness goes past the lines drawn I am to come in immediately, in other words, it is not good.

The fact that the girls were with me was great.  I told them when we got to the elevator that I was glad that were standing there, holding my hands or I would have absolutely lost it.  Greg, my rock, was calm and he quietly listened when we called to tell him and he said it didn't matter.  The end result is to get the cancer out.  This is just a new and different way that it might have to happen.

So, in this world when we hit a speed bump and have our breathe taken away, when we need to step forward and move again, we can either do it alone, or, have the strength of ones family to take the deep breath and holding hands, step forward together.