Making the Breast of a bad situation...

So, I went to the doctor.

The results of the TWO mammograms and follow-up ultrasound are in.

The follow-up will now have a follow-up.

I'll be meeting with my surgeon on December 22nd. Ho ho ho and a very merry Christmas to you, too.

It's not the first time I've been under the gun during the Holiday season and perhaps that might be fitting. Right now, I am thinking very much about the life and mission of the Savior. Though he started in a manger, he didn't stay a baby forever. That tiny babe of Bethlehem grew up to be the Divinely appointed Savior of the world. The words of the "Messiah" remind us that 'surely, he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows'. There is something soothing about knowing that he is carrying the weight of all that troubles the human heart.

The grief and sorrow of things that don't work the way you expect. Even the sorrows that come from worry over a pound of flesh skillfully arranged into a woman's breast...

I don't know what the further biopsies will reveal. Right now, I'm scared but okay. If the tests show that the breasts gotta go, then I hope my life is worth more than a couple of pounds of flesh that are more show than substance. They aren't that big anyway.

I just wish that the timing would be better since it is obvious that this particular "cup" can't be "passed from me". I don't want to ruin everyone's holy day of Christmas with a nagging concern for my personal issues. It makes me feel horrible.

While I am no martyr nor am I unconscious of the fact that everyone has an appointed time to come and an equally important appointment with our departure from mortal life, I am not really enjoying this view into my own mortality. It makes me feel so exposed, vulnerable and, well, human. I hope for more time in this part of my journey. And I feel like that human part of me that is struggling to stay welded to the divine that also makes up my being is not keeping up its end of the equation by bailing on me this way.

Just who gave my boob permission to go develop a problem like this anyway? No one asked me about it and I didn't receive any messages from the "Head Office" telling me this particular trial was coming down the pike. But I suppose that would defeat the purpose, now wouldn't it. God isn't malicious or cruel. He allows nature to take its course and works through natural means to bring about the purposes he has in mind. It's just sometimes that those life lessons we are to have sorta suck like lemons....

My patriarchal blessing talks quite frankly about the Job-like aspects of my life. That is kind of a scary reminder that the world will ALWAYS rage around me this way. I don't always have the kind of fortitude for the battle and frankly, some days, I'd just like a nap. When I was younger, I didn't understand what that admonition was all about. I still don't, but as you go over the scars and map of my life via the procedures I have endured, it is certainly a cautionary "jobian" tale of just what God might have in mind.

Despite knowing that we don't all get the same journey precisely because we are different children on an individual learning curve, there are days I think in my finite understanding that I wouldn't mind trading my trials for those of another.

I hate feeling so vulnerable and scared. Being a wussy isn't part of my normal nature. Sure, I have my moments, but most of the time, I am charging hell with a water pistol. The reality is I'm concerned for me, but more concerned for other people who might depend on me. I simply don't want to let anyone down. I don't want my concerns to derail their happiness nor to prevent them from achieving their life purposes.

But now, the breast has spoken. The leviathan that is the mammography machine and its equally formidable minion of the ultrasound machine have spoken and what they said was not fit for public consumption.

Will things be okay, be altered or be gone?

At this point, I really don't know and I'm too frightened to really contemplate it.

I'm trying to rely upon the mental image of a pair of scarred hands, wounded in my behalf, resting atop my head to take away a bitter moment that he has already endured in Gethsemane for me.

From what well may be a very damage breast, He is taking on the feelings and fear and making the best from the situation in the way HE designs. I just have to have the faith to believe that He will show me what that best way is and how I can do what is needed and learn the lesson that He wants to share.

She said "yes"!

It's hard to believe that my young'un is this old, but he is.

Thomas and his newly affianced sweetheart Tianna are about to embark on their life together ...

May 12th of 2012 is the day. 

I'm so happy for them, I could just about bust!

And yeah, for all you grammarians, I know the approved phraseology is "I am so pleased that I feel I might burst with happiness." but it ain't country enough to cover the emotion. Some times, saying it  how it feels is the best anyway.

Since I just don't have a whole lot of extra words to add, I'll just say this:

CONGRATULATIONS TO MY SON THOMAS AND HIS LOVELY TIANNA!!

People Let Me Tell You 'bout My Breast Friends

I got back my first mammogram.

It was not good.

When they CALL YOU and tell you to "come back in for some more angles and further testing", it's not because the tech was enjoying the view, if you know what I mean. It's more like, we don't like what we saw... not at all. And, relatively speaking, I'm a smart gal when it comes to this kind of thing. And, sadly, I know from past experience that this kind of phone call could spell trouble with a capital "B" and I mean boob, you spell it "breast' and we're talking possible cancer.


Having danced with the "Big C" before for another type - because one type apparently ISN'T enough for me - I know full well what a cad he really is. I say 'he" because even a really mean woman wouldn't take another gal's boobs. It just seems pointlessly cruel.

But, guys who lack boobs (and no, 'man boobs' do NOT count!), seem to invent ways to see just how tough a gal really is. It is the only conceivable explanation for the mammography machine and the required removal of every shredded pretense of dignity that you may once have possessed. Men inventing the procedure would also explain why the attendant is required to grope you like an over-eager bad prom date who skips out without even buying you dinner or being carted off to "juvie hall" to pay for the experience at your expense. It would also explain why, with tears in your eyes and running down your cheeks, you tell the attendant, "NO! I'm just fine! Let's get this done!!"

I can virtually guarantee that if the male inventors of the mammography machine had their "man berries" shoved into a vise and crushed like grapes, there would be a sudden uptick in non-invasive technology and a whole lot less groping. Well, maybe everywhere but San Francisco...

As I was there today for the repeat mammogram and the further procedures that were to fill my day, the morbid side of me set in and I began to realize something... it truly begs consideration of this "fact"... the diagnosis is in my "good breast".

Yeah, I realize that sounds ridiculous because you aren't supposed to play favorites, but the left side has always been a bit, well, perkier and better shaped than the right. Until now... I'm beginning to wonder about just what might have caused the perkiness since that is the side currently being scrutinized, smashed and radiated within an inch of its life.

Questions popped into my head from the second that I got off the phone to make this "fun" appointment. The "dread" part hasn't taken over because I refuse to allow myself to wallow in what might be until I am presented with full evidence of what is going on and how we can handle it.

Hmm. Bad choice of words there. I think I have been "handled" enough today, thank you very much.

It sounds almost sacrilegious to talk about the body as if it was merely the sum of its parts be they great or small. Yet, I have grown quite accustomed to having my breasts be right where there are. The thought of them being in a lab smear on a microscope slide is slightly disconcerting. And further, the consideration that they may or may not both be going away entirely is disturbing. I am not a fan of being totally flat-chested, it being a native condition for a majority of my life. But to be fair, what I have now isn't much more than that since it's mostly the accumulation of too much junk food and every time I lose weight, they go away.. the boobs that is, not the junk food.

And I can't consider going with a 'single'. That would just look stupid. Like half a mustache... The "twins" have been together forever... quite literally. They are a matched pair, or at least as matched as my asymmetry allows. There are two of them and they have been side by side through the training bra stage to the sports bras and to the push up bras that made me look like I had something when I don't.

But what if I don't have anything there in the due fullness of time? Can I live with that? *SIGH*

Yep. It's just a pound of flesh. Quite literally in my case, I am sad to say... the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Of course, I am not trying to jump the gun. We don't have a definitive diagnosis yet. I'm just trying to sort out what life might be like. Because right now, I do not know what comes next. I truly don't. We wait for word from the doctor who was reading all the various tests to see what his clinical eye and wisdom decrees to be the next step if indeed a next step is to be taken at all.

The worst part of this is that it is an area of my life where I need help and prayers from those who love me in spite of me. I have to tell them news that may turn out to be just a big scare and mean nothing in the long run or which may well alter the landscape of life for us all. I hate making other people feel sad, particularly when I am the reason for the sadness. And, oddly enough, it seems like these earth shattering announcements regarding my health have always fallen in December. Ho, Ho, Ho! A very un-merry Christmas present to say the least. Try to gift wrap this kind of information and make it exciting... uh, not so much.

I'll try to remain positive about all of this.

I keep talking about needing to lose weight and if a couple of boobs gets the ball rolling, so to speak, then so be it. That isn't to say I'm happy about the thought of it. Because I am not. We have been taught to think in our minds "come what may and love it". So, if this is something that is to come to me, then I reckon I'll get to learn to do something besides shop for bras... which never fit right anyway.

There is one aspect of the whole cancer issue that IS truly troubling... the people that might be left behind should this get ugly.

While I'm a pretty bright gal who managed to graduate from school and understand that I'm not the center of the universe, I'd like to believe that the people I love might consider me to be somewhat important and maybe even nigh unto irreplaceable.

Is that vanity?

If so, then chalk that up to my fragile ego needing a stroke or twelve. We ALL want to be someones world or at least a significant enough chunk of their world that if we were gone they'd miss us once in a while.

But my ego is sufficiently well developed enough to not want to die at all. Too many lives NEED me. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm tired, cranky and worn out from running the calendars of everyone else on the planet...


I have one favor to ask though. Keep my and my two breast friends in your prayers. That really isn't such an odd request. Though I may indeed be a charter member of the I.B.T.C. (Itty Bitty Titty Committee), I have no desire to be the president of the pushing up daisies chapter of "so long! it's been good to know you!"

I still feel like I have things to do, people to help, places to go and adventures to enjoy. I'm just praying that Our Father feels the same way...

Snow, milk, bread and eggs

Our resident weatherman is leaving... yep. Dan, Dan the Weatherman is departing for more exciting opportunities elsewhere. For the record, he's the one weatherman who panics people into a frantic drive to the store in perilous conditions for bread, milk and eggs. You know. Winter survival food in the Deep South.

Apparently, covering tornadoes that rip the state to shreds isn't exciting enough to keep him here. He's off to places that appreciate his winter weather forecasts that boost the stocks of companies that sell the milk, bread and eggs. He is off to predict weather in other locales that will appreciate his panic driven warnings of wintry doom.

Yesterday, his forecast called for snow up to 2 inches in many places... and, to be fair, we DO have flakes drifting past the window.

Two inches of snow. That's enough to cripple the area since most drivers here have no idea how to drive in the snow and are a danger to themselves and others. Of course, that can be said for drivers everywhere in snow. People who live in areas blessed with greater snowfall amounts each year tend to get cocky and overestimate their ability to "handle it" on the road and drive like maniacs. This would explain the wrecked cars that are perched precariously on mountainside passes that you can see during the spring thaw. Some eager beaver who KNEW how to handle the blizzard just kept pushing on despite the fact that the semi trucks had all pulled over to the side to wait out the storm.

Stupidity in snow isn't regional. It's a global phenomenon.

But back to the forecast. We have snow. SNOW! Yippee! Visions of hot cocoa and floating marshmallows fill my mind.

The top of the car has a few flakes dusting the surface... time to pull out the sled and hitch up the Huskies for the trip to the gym today. I must remind myself to stop at the store on the way back. I'm low on eggs and this farcical amount of snowfall makes me want French toast with warm maple syrup.

ON YOU HUSKIES!! MUSH!! MUSH!!!

Wait... hold that request... the snow is now mixed with a sleety rainy mix. That doesn't bode well for the forecast of fun. Instead, we get rain. Cold, wet, winter rain. In buckets. Filling the ditches. Making low-lying areas a danger.

So, SWIM YOU HUSKIES!! SWIM!!!!


Good thing they have a well developed backstroke. Nothing worse than being a sled pulled by a dog that flounders around in the water wallowing through the choppy waves created by the panic driven paws doggie paddling along.

Sadly, at 35 degrees, the snowy show will not last long and the ground is far too warm to start planning where to build Frosty the Snowman in our front yard.

Oh well. November is too early for whatever snow and ice we would normally get anyway. Time to sit back, relax and dream of an all SEC National Championship with the Tide clutching the crystal football when it's all over...