All Jokes Aside

If you read my previous post, you probably have a little grin on your face right now. You might have even laughed. Some of my friends say I have the quality of being witty, amusing or comic. That’s because sometimes I usually resort to humor when I find a situation too intense to handle. It’s not that the event is humorous in itself; It’s just that this approach helps keep me calm, sane and objective as opposed to other alternatives which no rational and mature adult should do. (Yes, not all adults are mature!)

So let’s see what we’ve covered at this point: flashback, I have a cancer diagnosis and flashforward I have a trip that I took. Now let me cover everything in between.

All jokes aside, for almost a year, I’ve felt an extreme sense of fatigue. I just didn’t feel like myself. I had no real zeal to work out as I usually did, and it was clear that I was putting on some weight. I thought maybe I was anemic, but it clearly wasn’t the case because my blood tests came back and I was in the normal range. Also, I felt a lump in my left breast that wouldn’t go away; just a tiny superficial lump (which, unfortunately for whatever reason, I disregarded at first.) I kept saying things like “Oh! I’ll check it out when I get some time off work.” It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t even huge; In fact, I didn’t even feel it unless I lifted my left arm up, which was how I initially palpated it the first time around while I was taking my shower. So for another couple of months, I did nothing. I was so busy that summer; spending time with my son and then I took a trip to Cameroon, which was brief but enjoyable in late August.

When I came back from my trip, I had a teaching job waiting for me at a local community college where I helped students in the Biology department. This was in September, the start of the Fall term. I really looked forward to this period and with my mini-vacation over, I was ready to be productive again. Something didn’t quite feel right though. I asked for some time off (which I detested because that would have jeopardized the grades of my students) but I was insistent on finding out what was going on with me. So I offered to take a leave of absence so that a substitute would replace me as soon as possible.

The first thing I did was go to my doctor and ask for a mammogram. Now, my doctor’s office would not cover it because insurance policies state that you have to at least be forty to qualify for one. At the time, I was only thirty-five. If my insurance would not cover it, that meant I would have to. And if you know anything about healthcare, it is that it is expensive. But this was my life and I did not want to joke about it. So I went online looking for free mammogram clinics, just about anyone who would do a mammogram for me at an affordable rate so that I could find out what was going on with this lump. I reached out to a good friend of mine who is in Public Health. Her name is Renate. We are childhood friends. Over the years, we have stayed in touch. She sent me some addresses and I followed up.

However, no one was willing to do this test for me at a discounted rate (since I was paying out of pocket).

Finally, I found a health clinic that was willing to do it for me. However, to do so, they needed me to wait until October. The reason was that October was breast cancer awareness month, and some clinics in the area would have free mammograms offered to women, and I would be able to get tested then. But this was the beginning of September. I couldn’t see myself waiting that long. October was four weeks away. I consoled myself that night, with the conviction that my lump was just an adenoma. But my gut told me otherwise. I must have driven to seven different clinics. I felt like a dog chasing my own tail. I finally found one that would be able to do the test for me. I told them: I know I’m not forty, or whatever and there are age cut-offs. But there’s a lump in my breast. My grandmother died of breast cancer. My aunt died of breast cancer. And I’ll be damned if I am going anywhere. Please help me. I got scheduled to come in the next week, but I was told it would be in a different county almost an hour away. I was okay with that.

That day finally came and I went in for my mammogram. Finally! I can put this to rest. Or so I thought. The doctor performs the test and as he reviews my scans the nurses keep whispering and they all have this weird look on their faces. They ask me to sit down.

“Ms. Ngu, I know you said you felt a superficial lump in your left breast. This is what you felt.” If you look at the image below, the top right-hand corner shows the date 2019 SEP and the bottom left-hand corner shows: AREA FELT BY PT (Area felt by the patient.)

I thought he was done and then he turns to me and adds, “There is just one other thing. Actually, there are three.”

I nearly passed out.

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