My Mother Help Me In Any Situation

A cyst! A tumor! Cancer! All these possibilities ran through my mind as I stood in front of the steamed mirror in the bathroom. It was that time again; time for another annual breast exam, only this time there was a hard, round lump in my chest which felt like a marble. It was tender to the touch and as I continued to feel the lump, I felt my heart begin to pound as if I had just finished running a 200 meter dash. Panic was beginning to set in. I felt like I was choking from the steam from the shower.

Quickly I wrapped my pink and white Hello Kitty towel around my body and ran into my mother’s room. Startled, she dropped her pen in the half finished crossed word puzzle and asked what the hell what wrong with me. Gasping for breath I told her there was a lump in my chest and ripped the towel off pointing to small lump. She advised me not to jump to the worst case scenario and began to palpate my chest for herself. Indeed, I had found a lump, but after close examination of my chest, my mother had found two. I couldn’t believe it. 18 years old a senior in high school already accepted into college and I could possibly be about to start a long battle with cancer. Tears began to pour down my face. My mother wrapped her arms around me and I buried my head in her chest, she whispered in my ear for my not to worry, we would make an appointment as soon as possible. She was always there for me. I am her only girl and we are very close. I can always count on her when something goes wrong. We share everything; there are no secrets between us. I climbed under the crumpled blankets on her queen sized bed, snuggled up next to her as she called the doctor and whimpered like a puppy until I finally fell asleep beside her.

Hours later I woke up, eyes puffy and head feeling like I’d been cracked on the skull with a hammer. I crawled out of the now empty bed and went to my mother’s book shelf to grab one of the 2000 page medical books she’d kept from nursing school. She has been a Registered Nurse for almost 15 years. I wasn’t sure if what I was looking for could be found in here but I needed some reassurance that it wasn’t cancer. No one in my family had ever had cancer, but my mother had a reoccurring cyst removed from her ovary not to long ago. In the oversized, medical book I flipped through the index to breast cancer. After skimming back through the pages, I found the short 2 page segment on breast exams and when to contact a doctor. The most important piece of information came on the following page in bold letters: “most bumps are nonmalignant.” That only eased my anxiety a little bit, since most is not all and with my luck I would be in the small percentage in which case the bumps were malignant. My mother had found more than one, and they were not in the same location. Another thought occurred, would I have to have one of my breast removed?! Starting to panic again I closed the book and went back to my mother’s bed, it was my comfort zone. I snuggled up to an old hard, lumpy feathered pillow my mother had since she was a child and looked at what seemed like yellow circles on the ceiling until I dozed off once again.

Later on I woke up to a shaking bed as my brother plopped down and asked me why I was in momma’s room sleep. Not feeling like talking I just turned over and faced the wall. After a few minutes of continuous “Queeta you hear me, what is wrong with you?” My mother came in and ran him out of the room. She knew it wouldn’t be long before I started fussing at him. He was always nagging me. After he left the room, she asked me how I was feeling and I told her nervous, but not as paranoid as I had been when I first felt the lump that morning. She laid an old, warm pink rag across my eyes to help with the swelling and told me we had and appointment the next week. She always goes with me to my doctor’s appointments. I need her there to make sure everything goes ok. I am more confident when she is there, because she understands a lot of what the doctor’s are saying when I don’t. It makes me feel good when she can explain things to me in simple terms versus medical terms, which usually make me nervous. As I lay in the bed, looking into the sea of pink covering my eyes, a million thoughts ran through my head about what diagnosis the doctor would give. At school the following week, I continued as if I had never found those painful, dreadful lumps; I noticed at home that the largest abscess had begun to shrink. I began to worry, what if the doctor couldn’t find anything at the appointment? What if I was in the early stages of cancer and it had went into remission? I found comfort jotting my thoughts down in a black and pink Hello Kitty journal my mother had gotten me for Christmas a few years back. I started writing to relieve stress after she told me that is what she does when she has something on her mind but doesn’t want to talk about it. It is just good to get it out on paper and no one has to see it unless you want them to. As the face on the journal winked and smiled back at me, I sighed and tucked it away under my pillow for easy access at a later date. In the mean time, those next few days waiting for my doctor’s appointment felt like an eternity.

Early Thursday morning a call came to my Biology class telling me to come to the front with my things, I was being checked out. Excited that I would be able to miss school but disappointed at the reason why, I slowly gathered my things and slid past the teacher out the door. Once outside there was a lot of excitement about the day ahead of me. I was going to get to spend the whole school day with my mother, without my brother nagging and constantly asking questions. Once in the car, my mother and I held a light conversation about what to expect at the doctor’s office and she reassured me she would be right there and that I shouldn’t worry. Still I worried! The drive seemed to be very quick, probably because I was so anxious, hands shaking unnoticeably to any one but me. The walk to the door was a long, drawn out one. I hop scotched over the white lines that separated the parking spaces to waste time and my mother didn’t bother to say anything. She knew I was nervous. She led as she had to check me in before I could be seen. I finally drug in, sat down beside my mother who was flipping through one of the 15 or 16 health magazines she had found on the table beside her. She loves reading those medical magazines, I usually do too but under the circumstances I wasn’t in the mood for the lengthy medical articles and health tips. I grabbed the only exciting magazine on the table, HIGHLIGHTS, began to flip through the ragged magazine, with multiple crayon marks and missing pages where subscription issues had been. I wasn’t looking at it to read it, but using it as a distraction, something fun to do before I saw the doctor.

At least 10 minutes passed until the secretary, dressed in all white, mispronounced my name “CHI-QUITA BRANTLEY!” We entered room five and my mother took the lonely chair in the corner where parents sit when their children are being examined. I sat on the half crinkled paper on the patients table as my mother explained to the nurse why we there today as if she didn’t already know she had the chart right in front of her. After asking me a couple of questions about pain and when I discovered the lumps, the nurse asked me to remove my shirt and bra and put on this large white paper napkin shirt. “The doctor will be in shortly,” she said. My mother nodded, I began to undress, slowly but surely. My mother told me to stop stalling and I threw the wrinkled napkin over my chest and lay on the patient table waiting to be examined by the doctor. “Relax” she told me, “everything will be fine.”

The doctor entered as I lay on the cold, leather upholstery and my heart was racing. I was for sure my mother and the doctor could see it beating through the cheap paper towel covering my chest. She was polite, asked how I was doing and made small talk about the weather. As she moved closer to me I began to tense up, she could sense it and told me to relax she would explain everything she was going to do. She tore the cheap napkin down the middle and I was exposed, she had seen more of me than some of my closest family members had. The room was an icebox. As she began the physical exam I took a deep breath. I lost myself in the colorful scrub top my mother was wearing. She had just gotten off work before she came and picked me up. There were ducks of all different colors scattered in all directions covering the shirt and I tried to count the ducks to pass time but I am more than positive I counted the same pink duck more than once.

Finally I gave up on the shirt and looked at the plain white ceiling. I begin to think to myself that I’ve spent most of my life fussing with my mother about her smoking and giving me lung cancer and here I am laying on an exam table with the possibility that I have breast cancer. The exam didn’t take long and because I wasn’t paying attention. She had already told my mother what she had found; those same two bumps my mother had found last week. She assured us that it was a very slim chance that it was cancerous, but she was going to refer me to Nash General Hospital for an ultrasound. As she chatted with my mother about what would occur at the Hospital, I redressed myself like the Flash. All the doctor had done was made me even more nervous. If she wasn’t sure what it was and she was the doctor, how could I trust her when she said there was a very slim chance it was cancerous.

At check out, the secretary handed my mother an appointment card set for two months from that date. I asked why it was far away, I wouldn’t be able to make it that long. I could die! My mother told me to stop being so negative and that no one in the family has or had cancer and I shouldn’t worry. She said maybe it was a bruise from playing football outside with the guys. I thought to myself that makes a lot of sense because I was always getting bruised and scraped playing football with the guys. Plus I had never had one of these lumps and since it felt like it was going away it just might have been a bruise. But still there were two bumps! How could she explain that! As we left the doctor’s I chatted with my mom about what I had saw in her medical book. She told me not to worry and to just wait for the ultrasound. I told her that if I felt like things were getting worse that we were going back to the doctor ASAP. She said that would be fine. In my voice, I knew she could tell I was still nervous. She reached over and put her hand on top of mine. I grabbed her hand and smiled. It was so warm, so caring. When we left I was excited about the next few events. I knew that every time my mom took a day off we would run errands, pay bills and go grocery shopping. This was the most exciting part of the day for some reason, maybe because I didn’t get to spend as much time with my mother as I wanted because she worked full time and when she didn’t she had to catch up on sleep. I was satisfied with any quality time I could snag with her after all, I was getting ready to leave for college in a few months and I wouldn’t get to see her everyday. I would miss her. But I knew that I would be able to call her everyday and that if something was to ever go wrong that she would be on the first thing smoking to Raleigh to make sure I was ok.

Two months came and went and it was time for the second doctor’s appointment. I realized the bumps in my chest had gone away. At least I couldn’t feel them so I didn’t stress about it anymore. Didn’t do any more exams because I knew I had an appointment coming up and I wasn’t ready for the potential stress. When we got to the hospital, my mom signed in and we were immediately taken to the ultrasound department. I wasn’t the only person waiting for an ultrasound but I was the first one called to the back, I didn’t even have time to flip through the HIGHLIGHTS magazine on the table. This one looked new. My mother stayed in the waiting area as I followed the nursing assistant to the ultrasound room. I wish she could have gone with me. I didn’t know anything about an ultrasound and needed her there to explain what was going on and why. I needed her in the room as my support. I knew that if anything went wrong she would know what to do, but I had no idea what to expect. Once again I found myself sitting on the same crinkled white paper I had sat on at the doctor’s office. We spoke briefly about the nature of my visit and after she jotted some things down on her clip board almost repetitive she asked me to remove my shirt and bra and put on another giant white napkin. “The Doctor will be in shortly.” She left.

Minutes later the radiology technician came in and I was lying on the table next to the computer. I was excited about this appointment I would get to see my internal structures. But, at the same time I as nervous, I didn’t know what to expect. Dressed in an all blue scrub, she carried the same clip board the nurse had carried; at least it looked the same to me. She pulled the roller chair close to me and asked how I was doing. I told her how excited I was after seeing the computer. As we talked about the procedure, she began to rub some blue jelly together in her hands. She asked me to remove the paper top. She took the lube and put it on a small section of my stomach and the rest on the camera that would show my insides. This was a test to see if the equipment worked properly. It did. She then took the tube of blue jelly and squirted it on my chest, it was cold and this time she didn’t rub it in. She reapplied jelly to the probe and began to slide it around my chest. She asked how I was feeling and I told her I was ok, except the jelly was cold. Looking up at the computer screen all I could see was a white screen with black dots on it. I had no clue what I was seeing. So far, so good she said. As she slowly slid the probe to the section where I had found the first lump she stopped, scanned over it again. She had found something. My heart was racing. She scanned the other spot, she found something else and she rescanned the area. She told me that there was indeed something there and that from the looks of it it could be a cyst but I would need surgery to have them removed and after examination they could tell me what it was. She would need to talk to the radiologist first and then they would talk to my mom. She told me I could get dressed and she was going to take the pictures to the lab.

I quickly gathered my clothes and wiped the jelly from my body. I had to get out of that office, back to my mother, back to my comfort zone. She saw my fear as I approached an asked what was wrong, as I started to tell her what the technician had said but, she was already coming up behind me to talk with my mother about what she had found and where we would go from there. My mother seemed worried. She wanted to speak with the radiologist and she wanted to see the pictures for herself before she decided that surgery was needed. I was so glad that she was there to handle the situation because I was a mess. I didn’t know what to do. After the word surgery, my mind went into frenzy. I knew that my mother would handle it and that she would make sure everything was ok. She always did. Still, I couldn’t believe it; I had never had surgery in my life and now before I go off to college I have to be cut open! As bad as that seemed at least my mom would be able to take care of me, just like she always has.

My mother held my hand as she talked to the doctor; I was antsy like a five year old waiting in line for the bathroom. I was ready to go. At the front desk my mother set a date for the appointment. I was set for January 2007, 4 months from now, when I would be on my first semester break from college. From that horrific day at the doctor’s office and the even more horrific thought of surgery, I tried to forget what would happen to me in a few months. Some way, some how I did and continued on to college with no sign on the lumps the whole semester.

When January came, I lay in the hospital bed surrounded by my mother, grandmother and aunt shaking, crying and nervous beyond all measure. My mom held my right hand and my grandmother my left. There was no other hand for my aunt to hold but I am sure if I had one, she would have held it too. We are a tight nit family. I had removed all jewelry and clothing and lay wrapped in one of those cheap green hospital gowns that opened from the front. The surgeon came in, then the anesthesiologist. My mother had gotten all the paper work done early that morning and the only thing left was for the surgery to occur. I tried to relax but it wasn’t working. I wasn’t ready for this. My mother couldn’t be with me in the room for surgery and even if she was I wouldn’t know it. The surgeon explained the procedure to my family who seemed to have had never ending questions. The same questions I had, but they had gotten to them first. I lay on top of the sheet trying to watch Magic School Bus on the 13 inch television that hung from the ceiling.

It was time. The anesthesiologist took over. He explained the drug that he would give me, that I wouldn’t experience any pain during the surgery and that he would be there to make sure everything went well. According to him, I wouldn’t even know I was in surgery. He took out the butterfly IV and administered some amount of anesthetic. He asked me to count backwards from 10 as they rolled me and the bed through the narrow doors to the room. The last thing I remember was going through that narrow doorway.

When I woke up I was in excruciating pain. My chest felt like it had been jack hammered and the wound was still fresh. My family was there and the anesthesiologist to make sure I woke up. The doctor came in an asked me how I was feeling; I couldn’t explain it so I pointed to the frowny face in the middle of a strip of paper he gave me to determine how much pain I was in. He said I had the option of going home or staying there for the night. Either way I would be in pain and I would be sleeping from the medication, so I decided to go home at least I would be comfortable. My mother decided that I should stay a little longer just to make sure I really wanted to go home. Exhausted I lay in the bed until I drifted off again. Once I woke up again I was more aware of what had happened. My mother asked if I still wanted to go home or if I wanted to stay. I opted to go home to my own bed. A nursing assistant rolled in a wheel chair and after I was dressed, I was escorted from the hospital, hospital policy.

That week and the next, I mostly slept and took pain medicine. I had a chance to look at my stitches when I was bathing and it looked as if my skin had been pinched together, overlapping in an irregular fashion. Months passed and even though the doctor said that it was healing fine, the skin still overlapped and didn’t lay flat to my chest. I had found out that what they had removed had been cyst and even though he said they wouldn’t come back I would still need yearly mammograms.

In the meantime school had started, I couldn’t carry a book sack or anything on my back, not even a purse, everything was in my hands and as much as it hurt I still drug myself to class each day. Luckily, I had a friend to carry my books for me and other times I just didn’t carry books and the teachers knew why. After what seemed like an eternity it was time to have the stitches removed. They had started to make my skin itch and in some places my skin had started growing over top of the stitches. It was a very quick procedure, a snip here, a snip there and it was done. The stitches were small but numerous. The healing process had left an ugly scare that still remains running down the middle of my chest and under my left breast. I am forced to look at it each time I shower and even though I am upset about the black marks, I am happy that part of my life is over.

Almost three years later and three or four ultrasounds with no lumps, I am feeling confident that they were only cysts and not tumors. Still completing my monthly breast exams, I stand in front of the mirror one arm up in the air, the other softly palpating my chest. Right in the middle of my chest, where I had found the first lump, another one had appeared in that very same spot. “OMG!” I thought as I grabbed the phone and fumbled over the buttons to find the right ones that would connect me to my mother. Before she even had time to say hello I shrieked, “There is another lump,”

“What, Are you sure,” she asked.

“Yes”, I said.

“I will call the doctor,” she said calmly, “Just relax.”

Of course we would make another appointment and this time things would be different because the doctor had assured us that the lumps would not come back. The appointment would not until I got out of school for the summer just in case I would need another surgery. Over that time, the lumps have come and go and so has the pain. I’ve decided to keep a log in my Hello Kitty journal so I would be able to tell the doctor how frequently they appeared. One my weekend visit homes my mother always checks for herself. I think that is best since she is the one who will be talking with the doctor. As the doctor appointment approached, I was even more nervous than the first appointment. With my mother by my side we entered the office and waited to be called. After another examination by the doctor, she sent me for another ultrasound within the same week. She couldn’t explain it. Neither could the radiologist or the endocrinologist. With these thoughts in mind we have decided to search for another doctor before we under go another surgery.