1. It's Totally Nothing to Worry About

After a softball game many, many years ago (I was maybe twelve), I rushed home, undressed, showered, washed my hair, rinsed, dried off, redressed and ran out the door headed to a basketball game. I timed it - less than three minutes. No joke. (I had short hair and didn't need to apply makeup or do my hair as I was just heading back out the door to another game, but I have a thing about cleanliness and just had to take a shower.) 

Fast-forward twenty something years to June 1, 2009. As I hurried through my evening shower (using a bar of soap instead of my usual liquid bath gel and a loofah), I came across the lump. It was the size of a pea and once I felt it, I refused to feel it again. (Maybe I was of the mindset that if I didn't feel it again, it wouldn't really exist or maybe it would just disappear. Truth, I was in denial.) I dried off, threw on a t-shirt and sweats, grabbed my cell phone and landed myself on the couch.  

I hurried off a text to "my person" (Grey's Anatomy people, you'll get the reference, but for the rest of you, that's another term for someone's best friend, the one who knows you better than anyone and would help you move a body should the occasion ever arise, no questions asked). The text I sent went something like this: Found a lump. Give me the speech. I'm too young, it's probably just a cyst, women get those all the time. RIGHT?!

The text I received back went something like this: Right. Totally nothing to worry about. You are too young for it to be anything serious. Probably just a cyst. Don't worry.

I have the best, most logical person/best friend. Smart, realistic, honest, so if she said it was nothing to stress about, I decided that was good enough for me. I didn't give it another thought all night.

That was the evening of June 1, 2009. (We'll talk about the irony of the date later.) I woke up the morning of June 2nd only to find that my lump had not disappeared or been a figment of my imagination as I had secretly and, somewhat naively, hoped. At 8:01am, I was on the phone with my doctor's office to schedule an appointment. The receptionist asked for what was I coming in to be seen. I told her I found a lump in my breast. I could hear something in her tone as she said my doctor (Vivian, that's all I ever called her) would see me at 10am. That was the longest hour and fifty-nine minute wait of my life.