Problem situation question explanation

It was Feb 3, 2006 and my first child had been born. His name was Andrew. I was determined to breast feed. My breasts were hard and lumpy they seemed to have enough milk. He wasn’t a big eater. The lumps didn’t seem concerning. I figured that was what it was suppose to be like. Either that or they had just been there my whole life and I had never noticed it. I never told anyone, but it haunted me in the back of my mind. One March 6, 2009 I had my second child Adrianna. The lump was still there. It seemed to have grown a little. I kept my eye on it. There wasn’t much change over the time that I breast fed Anna. I wasn’t really worried about it, well until I thought about it. I stopped breast feeding in November of 2010. I made doctor’s appointment to have my annual checkup and to be put back onto birth control. I kept telling myself I was going to mention it to them. Then I would convince myself that it wasn’t necessary. The first appointment had to be cancelled due to sickness. I finally got into see them the first week of December and by that time I had found another lump in the same breast. This lump felt entirely different. Now I was scared. This had become a problem. Two different lumps couldn’t have a good outcome.

This situation was beginning to terrify me. With the family history of breast cancer I was convinced of a bad outcome. My Aunt Shelia died of breast cancer in 1980. I was three years old. She was thirty three. She was the exact age that I am now and facing this situation. My Grandmother has fought breast cancer twice. The second time she ended up having a mastectomy. If I found myself in that situation I would have mine removed as well, I thought to myself. I am not ready to get sick I am too busy. I hadn’t told anyone about the lumps. Not my husband, my best friend and definitely not my mother. I am a firm believer in thinking that it is unethical to withhold medical issues from your loved ones and I kept justifying my decision with the fact that we didn’t know if there was an issue or not.

When I woke up the morning of my appointment I was scared. I didn’t want to ask about it but knew that I had to. Sometimes just not knowing can be better that finding something out. I told my husband that I was going to have my breast checked because I had found a lump. “I am sure that it is nothing” he said. Which was great, however sometimes when you have a feeling that it is something, it’s at that time that you just want a hug and “I will be thinking of you”. My appointment was at 1pm. It was an hour drive from my house. I arrived and got right in. We talked for a moment then I burst into tears. The doctor performed a breast examination and then told me that I needed to go over to the hospital to have an ultra sound done. I waited, waited, and waited for nearly an hour for them to find out if I could be seen over there that day. They could so I went directly over. My whole body was shaking. I called my mother to tell her why I was running late as she had the kids. Now she was freaking out which made it worse for me.

The ultra sound revealed a definite issue. Surgery was required as soon as possible. I was scheduled to see the surgeon who would perform a biopsy and talk to me about the operation. I couldn’t get in to see him until the beginning of December. Grated it was only a week and a half away but for someone who was convinced that they had cancer wanted answers yesterday. During those days of waiting to go see the surgeon I realized that they had only done the ultra sound on one of the lump. My anxiety level seemed to have reached it limit and I told him about it the second I entered the exam room the day of my appointment. So another ultrasound was scheduled for three days later. He scheduled surgery for December 30. So much for my new years eve plans! The second ultra sound showed only normal dense breast tissue. This was the lump that I had originally found so that was a relief. They decided against a biopsy as they were going to remove it no matter what it was.

Christmas passed and I put on a happy face for my family. It was hard but I didn’t want them to see how scared I really was. My husband stood strong on his words. He was convinced that I was going to be fine. I arrived at the hospital at 6 am. I told them when the scheduled me to make it the first one in the morning. No way was I going to wait around and think about it for a few hours. Before I knew it the surgery was over and they were wheeling me back to recovery. Now came the even harder part. I had to wait for the results. Of course being a holiday weekend it would take longer than normal. So the question remained, do I have breast cancer?

I was patient up until 8 am Monday morning. I called the doctor’s office the second they opened and I wanted answers. The nurse informed me that they would call as soon as they heard anything and that she couldn’t give me the answers if it were sitting right in front of her. The doctor was in surgery and wouldn’t be in the office until tomorrow. The phone never rang until late Tuesday afternoon and there the answer was. The doctor had called to give me the explanation, I did not have cancer. They had removed what ended up being an absest and milk duct from my breast. This can be common in woman who breast feed. I was so happy that everything was ok, and my husband made sure to tell me “I told you so”

A small look at a simple man

His hair has all turned grey, well what hair he has left. His skin is aged and wrinkly. His steps are short and slow. He just celebrated his 70^th birthday. He still wears a t-shirt or a sweatshirt depending on the day. He is a simple man.

This man sits in his chair at the kitchen table and stares out the window at his garage. He has a glass of diet coke and a cigarette. Sometimes he looks at a book or tinkers with a radio or clock. His mind is not as sharp as it once was and his hands shake too much to tinker with those little parts.

As a young man he had little money but worked hard. He started with a trailer and then a large modular. He had a shed. It wasn’t a garage not car would fit inside, but all his tools would. His children’s sleds went in a special place to not take up too much room. When he wasn’t working he spent most of the day time hours out there tinkering and fixing whatever needed to be tinkered or fixed. Sometimes he tinkered with what didn’t need fixing. This was his play time and only to be done if the garbage was taken out and the lawns mowed. He even worked hard in the gardens. He never sat still. He worked on his own vehicles he was a jack of all trades. He could fix anything. When the day ended he sat at the head of the table with his diet coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Years later two of his three daughters had grown and moved out of the home. Financially things were a little easier he could finally have a garage built. The garage would become the place of his dreams. He set up his woodworking equipment and his reloading system. Now when he worked on vehicles he could do it inside. He no longer had to lie on the damp ground. He was proud of his stuff and enjoyed his life. On his days off he would go to local gravel pits and pick up any empty shells that he could find. Then bring them home and reload them. He enjoyed talking to people and would tell them everything that was going on in his life even if he had just met them. He carried a bottle of diet coke and a cigarette in his hard.

When he turned 60 he was surrounded by family. He had recently had a major decline in his health. A stroke followed by a triple bypass. His diabetes had gotten a lot worse and he now had to take shots of insulin. His back issues from when he fell off a tank when he was in the Army had began to flare up a lot. He still spent time in the garage. He barely used any of his tools. Thousands of dollars just sat there. His tinkering focused to Anniversary clocks and radios. He found stuff that he could just do while sitting in the garage or at the head of his table. His family tried and tried to convince him to quit smoking. He had no part in it. He would always tell them that he didn’t fight for his country for nothing and that if he wanted to smoke he would.

A couple of years later he sold the house and land that he had since he was eighteen years old. The area had built up too much and it was getting loud. He went from a three bedroom one bath to a four bedroom 2 bath with just his wife and himself. He had seven grandchildren six girls and one boy. He loved spending time with them and showing them his toys. The new house had an even bigger garage. The garage had a whole upstairs too. He never went up there it was too hard for him. Now he was heavily medicated.  He took sixteen different pills a day, but he still enjoyed tinkering while telling stories as he smoked his cigarette and drank his diet coke.

It’s been almost a year since he has been in the garage. He sits at the kitchen table looking out the window at the garage, still proud of all that is in it. He takes apart clocks and looses the parts. He tries to put them back together and forgets how to do it. He tries to talk to people on his ham radio that he fixed but can seem to figure out how to get it to come in. He is a kind and simple man, still smoking his cigarette and drinking his diet coke.