"At Ft. Hamilton," I replied.

"Ah, well, a fax just came in from Ft. Hamilton. I haven't had a chance to even look at it so I don't know for sure but we rarely ever get anything from Ft. Hamilton. So, I'm sure it's for you. Come on in for your appointment."

It was 9:15 so I hurried to get dressed, eat some breakfast, and get going into the car. The appointment was at 10:00 in Fairfield, a good twenty minutes away. I hit every traffic light from here to there and was a few minutes late. The small waiting room was filling up with other people and I thought I was going to be waiting a long time. I had printed out all the forms from their website and already had them filled out and they were grateful for that. The chairs were a tight fit but I only had to try to wrangle my hips out of them twice. And in the inner chambers I went.

I'm sitting in the exam room with a paper sheet draped over my top. The doctor comes in. He goes straight for my breast to find the lump and feel it. Then he tells me to lift my arm which I did. He presses on a spot and I can feel whatever he's pressing on. "Yes, see, right there, the lymph nodes are enlarged. Feel it?" And he guides my hand to the spot and I try to feel around. He puts my arm down and stands in front of me.

"So, what does that mean?" I ask him. He looks at me questioningly.

"Have you read the report?" he asks. "No," I replied. And in an instant he realizes that I don't know that I have cancer and he has to be the one to tell me. Without changing the deadpan expression on his face, he tells me that I have cancer and it has spread to the lymph nodes. Then he asks how long have I had the lump. I stared right back and admitted that I didn't know and that I hadn't had a mammogram for a good five years. I can tell that he really wishes I had had some on a regular basis. I wish deeply that I had had them, too.

So, I want to say right here and now to all you ladies out there. GO GET A MAMMOGRAM DONE RIGHT NOW if you haven't had one in the last year. It's possible that this lump wasn't there for any mammogram to have found it a year ago. Maybe this thing started growing in the summer, you know. But I don't know. So, I'm not taking that chance again and will go to all the mammograms I'm supposed to get on a regular basis. It's not that I hate doing them. It's just that I procrastinated.

Right at that moment when I was told for certain that the lump was cancerous my life stood still. I had been telling myself that I wasn't going to make it into an earth-shattering moment. It wasn't an earth-shattering moment. I didn't hear any tinkle, tinkle of glass shards falling to the ground. No, it was rather eerily quiet. My mind went rather numb. He told me about the options of removal and I barely followed him. I was still trying to process that it wasn't just going to be a lumpectomy. I was blown away by the knowledge that it was in my lymph nodes already. DAMN! I knew he was saying stuff that was very important so I made myself concentrate and asked him to repeat the two options again. He said there was a third option and that was to do nothing. Instantly, I replied that that wasn't the option I wanted. He explained again that he could do a lumpectomy and also a removal of the lymph nodes. Then I would have to do radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Or I could have the whole breast removed and then it would only require chemotherapy. I asked about hormone therapy and he said I can discuss the treatment options with my oncologist.

So, it's not just a lump, I was saying to myself. Just a lump, in and out surgery and I go on with my life. No, it's either a little or a lot and then I have to be on guard the rest of my life. DAMN!

He said he felt the mastectomy was the better option for me. You get rid of all of it and only have to do one kind of therapy. He also thought that since my breast is so large that the radiation might not be as effective. But he said the choice was mine and that I didn't have to let him know until pre-op swabbing. Yes, I had a lot to think about, a lot to get used to, a lot to wrap my already fogging up brain around. As he was starting to leave, I said, "I've always felt that the left side of my body didn't like me." That made him and the nurse laugh. I forget what his parting comment was. I was just happy that I made him laugh. There, I was thinking, he can tell that I am having a good frame of mind about this. I wasn't all out bawling in tears (I knew that would come as soon as I got into the car and was completely alone). I wasn't freaking out and collapsing (not my kind of thing to do anyway). It's not that I had to make a point to show them I was in a good frame of mind. I really did feel in a good frame of mind about it. All the suddenness and shock of it would come later.