Saturday, October 15

           Thank you Tonya.

Tanya Schaffer stopped by the house yesterday and dropped off this journal (I write in a journal and Staci types it for me) and cute card. Awesome, one item off my list to do. The girls are setting up a blog for me to journal but that’s all going to be new for me. I’m a little nervous about all the new experiences waiting for me :-/ .

I know one thing, I am hugely loved and supported. I just hope I don’t wear out a good thing.

I spent the day going to a baby shower for an old friend, to a pumpkin patch with Brielle and Staci, and later on to a wedding reception. It felt kind of weird keeping a deep dark secret from everyone.

Staci is having a pink fetish. She has come home with pink nail polish, pink tweezers with ribbons on them, a pink flat iron, a pink magnet picture frame, a pink notebook, a pink pen, pink breast cancer awareness bags, and a pink callous remover. I have vowed to wear my pink pin (free from the breast care center), and pink nail polish until this journey is over. When I told Staci this she went out and bought 4 more bottles of pink polish.

I am going to slowly backdate a calendar of events leading up to all of this. Here is what I have so far.

Calendar of Events: Sometime in the 3^rd week of September I was doing a large load of laundry from our trip to Lake Powell. In reaching across the bed somehow I felt a tenderness/pull/pain in my breast. I don’t believe I really addressed it seriously until the first week of October. I remember thinking that everyday I was hearing the word "cancer". It was so weird! On the radio, billboards, work, General Conference, etc. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and they do a good job, at least with me. I began to palpate my right breast on a regular basis, compare the two breasts, then started having family members give it a “feel”. We all had our own opinions of what we were feeling. Of course I thought of cancer, but I easily dismissed it, since things like that don’t happen to me!

           My last mammogram was last October (2010) and at that time a “lump” was felt. I had an ultrasound and it was diagnosed as a benign fluid filled cyst, which was about 3cm. I was also seen by Dr. Pieper in May and had a physical exam. She felt the lump and looked over the ultrasound results from October. I assumed it was the cyst growing. I saw Dr. Pieper at work, she agreed with me. After a busy frustrating week, I got a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound ordered, and discovered my benign cyst was on my left breast. This growth is in the right!!