13 ~ Scary Mammogram: Trust & Pray

November 2016

While I was in the waiting room at Dr. E.’s one day, the midwife from my GYN’s office called to check on me and see how I was doing. I love doctors who truly care about their patients and reach out on such a personal level! We talked about upcoming appointments and touched on my upcoming mammogram. I asked her how they would do it with my chemo port. My first mammogram hurt like heck! I feared that if they squeezed me any tighter that something would squirt out of me. So, naturally I was concerned about this one! She said that they can just do an ultrasound of that side and do a regular mammogram on the other side. She put in the request so it would be ready to go for my appointment.

          I had so much anxiety prior to this imaging that I asked for someone to drive me. When I got into the imaging room, the technician didn’t understand why I wasn’t having the left side put in the clamp like the other one. I explained to her that I had just had the port put in about 2 months ago and was going thru chemo and that it was painful having my skin stretched and pinched for last year’s mammogram and that is why we are just doing an ultrasound on this side. She still seemed perplexed! I was so emotional in trying to re-explain this to her that I ended up in tears and she was like, “OK, we’ll just do the ultrasound”.

          She went to have the doctor read them and they came back and said “We think there is a nodule on the right side and now we need to do an ultrasound on it.” I was a wreck! I was in tears and sobbing uncontrollably! They helped me into an empty waiting room with a door and put me off to the side in a chair (probably so no one could see me!) til they were ready for me. I sat crying and praying the entire time. I was fortunate to have the same ultrasound technician who previously did the left side (and I’ve had her in recent years as well!) and she was so understanding, calm and reassuring! She herself had battled cancer and understood how it felt and told me if I ever was in here and needed a breast ultrasound, that I could ask for her! 

          They called me back in and did the ultrasound and just kept me there in the exam room til the doctor read it to make sure no other images were needed. The doctor, himself, came into the room to deliver the good news of “all looks good and we’ll see you next year!” I was so relieved! I just thought that I could not face one more thing to go wrong with my health!

LADIES – GO GET YOUR YEARLY MAMMOGRAMS!!!!! Don’t just think that because you don’t feel anything that nothing is wrong! And if you DO feel something, don’t wait and figure it will go away! Do monthly self-exams and if there is a history in your family – even more reason to get checked! I have found that the few minutes of discomfort are nothing compared to sitting and worrying about it or finding out bad news because you have put it off of your to-do list for so long! I would rather know and move on with life, than not know!

I am not going to tell you that God won’t give you more than you can handle. The Bible never says anything about that! It does say that God will be there with us thru it; that He will be our refuge and strength. I was scared, I cried, and I prayed. And, if it would have turned out that they found cancer thru that exam – then I would have prayed all the more. That doesn’t mean that thru prayer I would have been healed, but that He would have been right there with me in the trenches of fighting this horrible disease. Yes, He has the power, but it may not be His will. His ways are not our ways. Pray, and thank Him in advance for your healing! Claim it! There is power in prayer and in His name!