The Diagnosis - Breast Cancer

Well, things didn't go as I had planned. I received a call, fin...let me back this up actually.  I was told I would hear on Wednesday.  All day I sat at my desk waiting for my work phone to ring. When I left my desk I would take my cell phone with me. The call never came. Every half an hour that passed I would cross that time off my personal calendar.

I sat there (I had to work an hour late to make up time from the biopsy appointment) at my desk staring at the clock on my computer, realizing it was now 5:00 p.m. and most doctor offices were now closed. I felt perplexed.  All day people felt it was a good sign that I hadn't heard yet. It wasn't an urgent issue for them, they believed. I started to believe it too. Now, as I sat there looking at the time turn to 5:01, I wondered, why would they promise to call me no matter what and not?

I picked up my desk phone and called the number on the form that radiology gave me.  Someone answered!!!!!!!  Hallelujah!

"I had a biopsy there on Monday and was told I would hear by today and no one has called me." Instant dejection when her response was, "Your primary doctor will be the one to call you."

She asked me my date of birth and spelling of my last name as she clicked and clacked on the keyboard of her computer to see if the test results had yet been sent. Turned out, they had. To both my OB (who did the initial exam) and my GP (who wasn't involved at all).

I felt desperate and angry. I left emails for both offices since they were closed.

The next morning, I sat at my desk, checked my emails and my medical chart online. No responses and no voice mails. Once more I picked up my phone, before 800 and left a voicemail with the triage nurseline at my OB's office.

Two more hours pass by and still nothing.  This time I called my GP's number and left a message with reception to call me. Hope began to well up in me that if they weren't calling me, it had to be nothing. Wrong.

My phone finally rang and I picked up it expectantly. She said, Hi Karen, this is so and so.  Blah and blah and blah and unfortunately....my heart sank.

It didn't hit me until I started taking notes on the cancer type and other things. While it was a very common, possibly the most common breast cancer and an "early" cancer, the Grade and receptor status weren't.  It began to feel fear like I never had in my entire life.  That was when the tears began to roll and I couldn't speak without choking up. Inside, I'm begging for someone to tell me that it will be fine and I won't die, outside I'm asking this nurse if I'm going to die, but of course I know she can't answer that question. No one can.

I picture my brother, his face contorted in fear and grief as he lay in his hospice bed, crying. I'm panicked and desperate.  I just want to go home. I don't want to talk to anyone or do anything, but I have to get connected with Occupational Health because there will be appointments that I need covered by FMLA. I'm thinking all of this as I continue to write and ask questions that I have already forgotten. My appointment with the doctor is October 6th, unless someone cancels and I can get in sooner. I may just meet with her or the Oncologist first or something like that.  It's all wing dings to me. (computer nerds should get that). So here I go.  No scary made up stories of a killer on the loose in the woods. I guess this will be the blog for now, a scary story of a very real tiny monster on the loose inside of me.

Wish me luck.