I showed up to my doctor's office for my first full physical in four years on October 7, 2011. I was pretty smug that the doc was going to tell me how awesome I was, as I had been on a healthy diet/exercise kick with my husband for the past several months. I had even cut back my wine consumption considerably and I was pretty sure the doc would tell me how beautiful my liver was.
I tried not to let it phase me that my doctor dimed me off on his nurse practitioner...I had been with my doctor for 15 years and I wanted to hear him sing my praises, but whatever. The nurse was a chatty lady and she appeared sufficiently impressed with the temple I was allowing her to admire. I went through the normal tests and procedures and was given a clean bill of health.
Later that night I was still glowing about my A+ performance and grade from the nurse, but for some reason I decided to feel my girls up. Weird...I felt a lump on the lower part of my left breast. I may be inclined to overreacting to things in general, so I tried not to freak out. I told my husband about the find the next day while running our daily marathon (no big deal - we were boss like that back in the day) and he suggested I make another appointment with my doctor for him to look/feel/evaluate the lump.
I went back to the doctor's office on October 17, 2011 and this time Dr. L saw my personally. He felt the lump. He furrowed his brows. He said it was probably nothing. He said I was too young. He referred me for a mammogram and ultrasound "just to be safe." I'm all about safety, so I made the call to set up the tests. Well...October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the lady said they couldn't get me in for the boob smush until the following month. Apparently a lot of ladies schedule their annual mammograms in October - nice work ladies!
This whole time I am focusing on the fact that I had to pay TWO thirty dollar copays when Chatty Nurse should have felt the lump during my original exam. I vent about this issue to my husband later that day during our marathon. He validates my feelings that another thirty dollars is freaking ridiculous, but for some weird reason he is more focused on getting my boob smush done asafp.
The next day I am stuck in a mandatory training at work - the kind that if you are five minutes late they scold you in front of the class and make you take the damn thing again. I called Dr. L's office before the training starts and inform them that I expect my thirty dollars refunded...and oh yeah, could they refer me somewhere else for the boob smush because the place they referred me to had a month long waiting list. I was told the office manager would call me back once the office opened (poor answering service lady - she got an earful), and I had to explain I was in a mandatory training all day so could they please call my husband?
Through some stealth texting action - my husband communicated to me that I could do my mammogram and ultrasound during my lunch break. And my thirty dollars would be refunded. Brilliant.
I showed up for the tests and I made it very clear that I needed to be back at work at 1:30, so lets poke and prod these girls quickly. So let's just say it didn't work out very well. As I was watching the clock and getting more and more anxious that I would have to take the *(#@&$@ training over again, I failed to notice the furrowed brows and whispers that were going on around me. Before I know it, I have the whole damn oncology staff at the hospital introducing themselves to me and asking me to call my husband to come to the hospital so we could all have a talk. And the real kicker was when one of the nurses took me into a room to wait for my husband and introduced herself as the "hospice nurse."
Apparently that training was going to have to wait...I needed hospice and a family meeting.
I'll leave you with a picture that a fabulous photographer took of my family on October 23, 2011...in the middle of the worst week of my life:
