Pink M&Ms!

Pink M&M's!
Originally uploaded by gluoma.

It was time for bed, so she began the routine. Went to the bedroom, got undressed and took her shower. As she stepped out of the shower her husband noticed the look on her face and asked what was wrong. "I think I found a lump on my breast under my arm, but I'm not sure."

She was diligent. Every month on her birth date she would give herself all the required self exams to ensure that she would never be the one who found anything amiss. Somehow in her head she felt like if she never missed an exam she would never really need one. Did that make sense? No, not really, but it was a superstition of hers. "Be prepared and you'll never have an emergency" type of thinking. But this time it wasn't working. She knew it, her husband knew it and the first thing the next morning the doctors knew it.

Luckily she had the kind of insurance that allowed her the luxury of a professional and complete exam the very next day. She went in, sat in the waiting room and convinced herself that she was just silly, over thinking or perhaps even just feeling something that was normal and she had missed previously. It was her turn and she went in.

The doctor did his exam. He consulted another doctor. She did her exam. Both of them looked straight at her and told her the nurse was scheduling a mammogram and that she would go down stairs, get the mammogram, wait for the results and bring them back up stairs for evaluation. "This is it.", she thought. "This isn't just me, they feel it too." Her heart sank a bit. She wanted to call her husband; but this was before cell phones and he was at work anyway. How could they talk? "It will be o.k.", She told herself.

She went in, had the mammogram, and waited. All the way back up stairs she wished she knew what she was looking for as she looked at the film of her breasts. She went in and the doctors looked and searched, mumbled something to each other and then came back over to her. "We're going to go ahead and take a needle biopsy. There are a few spots on both of your breasts, in several different places that we are concerned about. The biopsy will help us determine which direction we need to go." She was stunned, but o.k. "I can handle this. It's going to be o.k.", she kept repeating in her head. She actually felt calm inside.

She laid down and the doctor took a small needle and over and over again drew samples of her to be taken to a lab. After the third poke she began to cry. Not loud and weepy, just the tears came without warning or control. Just a few, and it bothered her that she was this upset. Inside she thought she was o.k. It was like her body couldn't take the idea of it all. There wasn't any pain, there wasn't any evidence to suggest anything really "wrong" yet and still the tiny little stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. "This is really stupid." she told the doctor. "No, no, believe it or not this happens all the time. It's a release. It's o.k." "But I'm not scared or anything. It doesn't hurt. It's just..." "Weird.", the doctor interrupted. "Yeah. I feel really stupid." "It's o.k. It's your body and we're invading it with all kinds of terrible news right now. But it will be o.k. You're doing fine. Just a few more."

The tests came back inconclusive. "You'll need to recheck every three months." It seems there were three good sized lumps, "baby-pea size" under the right arm in the breast tissue, and five others in the left breast that she had missed completely. Smaller than the others, but still there. They would check every three months to see if the lumps would grow. The cells weren't normal, but they didn't look cancerous either. "My luck, even my cells aren't normal." she thought. She went in faithfully every three months for two years, then every six months, and now faithfully once a year.

That's S'mee. I always have told myself that if it did happen I would handle it this way and that. But when I had to get real about it -all the planning flew out the window on wings of fear and dread. I am the girl with the abnormal cells. I am the girl with very good luck. I got myself off (most) caffeine and I stay diligent.

There are many people for whom luck isn't an option. And lest we think this can only happen to the gals, think again. It is called breast cancer, not female breast cancer. I have a dear friend who went through the whole male end of this and there were all kinds of emotions that came along with a disease that is primarily focused on one gender, and it wasn't his. He also took the Big C by the horns and did what needed to be done. My sister in law lost her mother to this disease and then twenty years later both of her breasts. They need your support along with millions of others.

This month M&M Mars is promoting pink M&Ms. Donations from every purchase will go directly to the Susan J. Komen Cancer Research fund. Go grab some pink deliciousness and enjoy helping a good cause.