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This cannot be happening again. I know what a “tiny spot” means. A one-centimeter “spot” detected by my mammogram a year ago initiated this entire nightmare.
“What’s
matter mom?” Amber asks.
“I’m very tired today,” I reply. She doesn’t ask any more questions. She saw first hand how being tired made me cry during chemotherapy treatment.
I show up for CT scan following Thursday. I tell nurse I have a port to draw blood from.
"I’m sorry, honey, we can’t use a port for this type of blood test.”
When nurse inserts IV, I stare at exit sign and imagine ripping needle out and walking to my car. It’s my body.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, but I keep my eyes on exit.
The next day my husband, Randy, wakes up with a fever. Stomach virus. I decide to take Makenna to neighborhood pool. I put on my swimsuit and tape a bandage over my port. I leave my cell phone in house. When doctor called me with bad news a year ago, Randy wasn’t with me. I won’t let that happen again.
We’re at pool about two hours when I see my husband parking his car outside gate. My heart sinks. There is only one reason he would drag himself out of bed to meet me at pool.
“You forgot your phone,” he says. “And your oncologist called.”
Then he hands me a piece of paper.
“I can’t read it,” I say. My eyes are filled with tears.
“No, honey,” he says. “It’s good news.”
I blink and read diagnosis: “Hemangioma. Group of blood vessels. Totally benign. Born with it.”
“I asked him to repeat information twice,” he said. “I knew you’d want to know exactly what he said.”
Totally benign. I can breathe. We go home and I tape note in my journal.
A “tiny spot” will always be a major deal for me, and that’s okay. I’ll continue to live fully and proactively. I’ll confide my fears in my journal when my family can’t understand them. And I’ll keep right on being a survivor.
