My Cancer Story: "I have cancer?"

My story with cancer needs to be told. It stays in the back of my mind, and I know I need to share it. I read others stories and feel inspired to share mine.

I was having what I considered an ordinary, but busy life. I was 44, a single mother of three children. My daughter Amy was 20 and busy with college, my son Wesle was 13 and becoming an annoying teenager, and my youngest son Kyle was 8, and a kind, loving angel.

I had just put the finishing touches on my portfolio for the state department of education. This was a requirement to getting my teaching certificate. I was also enrolled in three college courses and busy studying for them. I was teaching full time and busy with lesson plans as well. I dreamed of a vacation every day. I wanted a break from my life, and boy was I in for a change.

I had been feeling different all year. I could not put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong. My poor primary care MD had tested me for almost everything. I think he was beginning to think I was the biggest hypocondriac he had ever treated.

I had also been having pain in my right arm, it felt like nerve pain, and my fingers were going numb. I had had an MRI of my neck, but nothing there.....Okay what the heck is going on. I was not too worried until the dreadful night I found the lump. I was on the floor complaining about the nerve pain to my boyfriend Robert of 3 years. I was trying to find a spot under my arm to push and stop the pain. Oh I found the spot alright, but not what I wanted to find. On my right breast near my armpit I found a large lump. It did not hurt and was not moveable. I was an RN for 7 years before switching to teaching, so I knew this was trouble.

Rob, tried to tell me to think positively, but how could I think positively. I was also mad as hell. I had seen a breast doctor a couple of months before. I kept getting infections in my left breast. The infections were much like mastisis, and he had to drain a whole lot of pus from my left breast. He told me don't worry I see this all the time and it is nothing that a bit of antibiotics can not cure. Why was I mad, well the darn doctor could have done a breast exam, but he didn't. I will never know if that 2 months would have made a difference in my treatment.

I made a doctor's appointment first thing Monday, when my family doctor felt the lump, I saw the look on his face. I knew what that look meant, I used to be a nurse and I knew that look. I wanted to scream, "Don't look at me that way!" He ordered an emergency mammogram for the next day.

I went to the mammogram alone and scared. As my breasts were squeezed and flattened my mind kept wandering to all the things I really needed to be doing. The nurse told me the radiologist needed to do an ultrasound. I knew that was bad, especially when she told me she had been doing mammograms for 20 years. I knew she had seen something, but could not tell me. She started talking about all the wonderful treatments they had for breast cancer now, and I was ready to wet my pants...well if I had pants on.