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Wait for the diagnosis brings scenery into focus
By Regina Brett
POSTED: 10:21 a.m. EDT, Jun 05, 2008
This column was first published Monday, March 9, 1998
The wait begins.
It's just a cyst. It's got to be just a cyst. That's what everyone tells me about the lump in my breast.
"My friend had one as big as a golf ball from drinking caffeine. . . . My wife gets them all the time. . . . My sister goes through this once a year. . . . It's nothing to worry about."
Everyone has a story that ends up well. Their lumps all turn out to be cysts.
It's what I want to believe.
So I go to the surgeon with my husband, expecting a quick, painless, final, triumphant office visit. The plan is simple: The doctor will jab a needle in the lump, it will fill with fluid and we'll sigh, hug and never return.
As the surgeon touches the suspicious area, a look of worry washes over his face. He can tell just by the feel that it's not good. He doesn't use the word "tumor." Nowadays they refer to them as lumps. It sounds less scary.
It's not a cyst.
He slathers yellow-orange antiseptic on my skin, numbs the area with a needle and presses a metal box against me that fires another needle inside to collect a tissue sample.
The lab will analyze the "true cut." That's all he says. I ask if it could be cancer. "Let's not go there. Let's just wait and see," he says.
It's a benign lump.
That's what everyone tells me.
"I know someone who has them removed all the time. . . . My sister-in-law had one bigger than yours and it wasn't cancer. . . . I get these annually. . . . They're nothing."I want to believe them, since 80 percent of all breast lumps turn out to be noncancerous.
Deep in my gut, I don't believe it. Deep inside, I'm terrified.
I know it isn't nothing. I don't know why; I just do.
As I wait for the lab results, the lump seems to grow larger every day. At first it seemed to be as big as an almond, then the size of a walnut half, now a whole one. Maybe I'm just going nuts.
If it had just been a blip on a mammogram, I could doubt the test. But I can feel it.
It's like a live grenade in me. A grenade that will blow off my breast, my hair, my life as I know it into bits.
It's strangely like finding out you're pregnant; it carries that same powerful mix of possibility and potential, only in the opposite way.
The wait is killing me. I can't eat, sleep or relax. It feels like someone slugged me in the stomach and never removed their fist. I wake up at 3 a.m. in sweat-soaked sheets.
The surgeon calls. The tissue sample showed nothing conclusive. We set up a surgery date to remove the lump.
But the mammogram was negative, I plead. "That doesn't matter," the surgeon says. Mammograms aren't perfect and don't work as well on younger women who have dense breast tissue.
But the tissue sample was negative, I implore. "Don't be positive about it," he cautions. "There's still a possibility it is cancer."
I cling to the faith of my childhood, praying rosaries and psalms. The prayers are good for about 24 hours, then each one expires and all I hear within is the pounding of my own heart.
One minute I pray like a child, begging God it's not cancer, then try to pray like an adult, "Thy will, not mine."
Then it happens. Late one night as I'm driving home, I find myself lost in the valley of the shadow of death. Well, not really. It's just a dark winding road in the Cuyahoga Valley.
Suddenly, deer appear all around me. I'm driving in the middle of a herd. I have to slow to 10 mph so I don't hit any.
Instead of panicking about how long it will take to get home or cursing the fact that I got lost, I start to feel relaxed and enjoy the scenery.
A peace takes over and the drive becomes my prayer.
I realize my life may soon take another path, one I would never choose. But even on a path that looks like death, delays and despair, there will be new life.
This column was first published Monday, March 9, 1998
The wait begins.
It's just a cyst. It's got to be just a cyst. That's what everyone tells me about the lump in my breast.
"My friend had one as big as a golf ball from drinking caffeine. . . . My wife gets them all the time. . . . My sister goes through this once a year. . . . It's nothing to worry about."
Everyone has a story that ends up well. Their lumps all turn out to be cysts.
It's what I want to believe.
So I go to the surgeon with my husband, expecting a quick, painless, final, triumphant office visit. The plan is simple: The doctor will jab a needle in the lump, it will fill with fluid and we'll sigh, hug and never return.
As the surgeon touches the suspicious area, a look of worry washes over his face. He can tell just by the feel that it's not good. He doesn't use the word "tumor." Nowadays they refer to them as lumps. It sounds less scary.
It's not a cyst.
He slathers yellow-orange antiseptic on my skin, numbs the area with a needle and presses a metal box against me that fires another needle inside to collect a tissue sample.
The lab will analyze the "true cut." That's all he says. I ask if it could be cancer. "Let's not go there. Let's just wait and see," he says.
It's a benign lump.
That's what everyone tells me.
"I know someone who has them removed all the time. . . . My sister-in-law had one bigger than yours and it wasn't cancer. . . . I get these annually. . . . They're nothing."I want to believe them, since 80 percent of all breast lumps turn out to be noncancerous.
Deep in my gut, I don't believe it. Deep inside, I'm terrified.
I know it isn't nothing. I don't know why; I just do.
As I wait for the lab results, the lump seems to grow larger every day. At first it seemed to be as big as an almond, then the size of a walnut half, now a whole one. Maybe I'm just going nuts.
If it had just been a blip on a mammogram, I could doubt the test. But I can feel it.
It's like a live grenade in me. A grenade that will blow off my breast, my hair, my life as I know it into bits.
It's strangely like finding out you're pregnant; it carries that same powerful mix of possibility and potential, only in the opposite way.
The wait is killing me. I can't eat, sleep or relax. It feels like someone slugged me in the stomach and never removed their fist. I wake up at 3 a.m. in sweat-soaked sheets.
The surgeon calls. The tissue sample showed nothing conclusive. We set up a surgery date to remove the lump.
But the mammogram was negative, I plead. "That doesn't matter," the surgeon says. Mammograms aren't perfect and don't work as well on younger women who have dense breast tissue.
But the tissue sample was negative, I implore. "Don't be positive about it," he cautions. "There's still a possibility it is cancer."
I cling to the faith of my childhood, praying rosaries and psalms. The prayers are good for about 24 hours, then each one expires and all I hear within is the pounding of my own heart.
One minute I pray like a child, begging God it's not cancer, then try to pray like an adult, "Thy will, not mine."
Then it happens. Late one night as I'm driving home, I find myself lost in the valley of the shadow of death. Well, not really. It's just a dark winding road in the Cuyahoga Valley.
Suddenly, deer appear all around me. I'm driving in the middle of a herd. I have to slow to 10 mph so I don't hit any.
Instead of panicking about how long it will take to get home or cursing the fact that I got lost, I start to feel relaxed and enjoy the scenery.
A peace takes over and the drive becomes my prayer.
I realize my life may soon take another path, one I would never choose. But even on a path that looks like death, delays and despair, there will be new life.
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