Why I Do "Relay For Life"

About a lifetime ago, I did a blog on MySpace about my breast cancer scare. Relay For Life is coming up, and I thought it was a good time to touch on the subject again. So here it is.

September 11, 2006 was the kind of day that starts out hopeful, then ends in chaos. I had an appointment with the obstetrician, and an ultrasound planned. In the course of the appointment, the doctor found a lump in my breast. That's when life began to go crazy. Every possible emotion coursed through me, anger, sadness, fear...especially fear.

After a second opinion, I went to the CNY Breast Health Center. I was expecting it to be a quick appointment, and planned on getting lunch and doing some shopping afterward. No such luck, because there on the sonogram screen was this big black void. The doctor came in with a serious expression on his face.

"We need to take a tissue sample. Today." In a single moment my entire world felt like it was crashing down around me. All I could picture was my oldest son's face. I couldn't breathe. I called Ed, and he literally ran out of work and up the hill to the hospital. I was sitting in the waiting room crying hysterically, when the girls in the admitting office saw me and pulled me into their office, so that I wouldn't be on display. They brought me tissues and ice water, and held my hand until Ed got there.

If you ever need to have this done. I would recommend this office to anyone. They explained everything as it happened. A nurse held my hand the entire time, and they even let Ed go in for the procedure with me.

If you have never had a breast biopsy, let me tell you that it is the freakiest, most degrading thing you will ever go through. First they "numbed" the area with Lidocane, while they tell you that you won't feel anything but a little pressure. They are lying. Then they make a slit in the skin, and take an instrument that looks like an eight inch needle with a box on the end of it. They shove it into the slit, and when they take the sample, it sounds like a staple gun going off. They repeat this about eight times. It hurt like hell. I'm lying topless on an exam table in a room crowded with people, while some guy I don't know is removing part of my breast, piece by piece. When it was all over, I started shaking and couldn't stop. It's been five years, and I still wake up screaming from nightmares about it.

In the end the tests all came back negative for cancer. I was lucky. So now five years later, I do Relay for Life. I do it for all the women who weren't as lucky as I was. For all the mothers who didn't get to watch their children grow. For all the children who watched their mothers lose their battle. I was lucky. It's my way of saying thank you. So when you see a Relay for Life event, remember my story.