Valentine's Day

 February 14, 2025

For the last 18 years, Valentine's Day has been different around our house. Maddie was born 5 weeks premature, on Valentine's Day. Labor started very early in the morning so she was bound and determined to be born that day! Amidst all of the Valentine's cards and treats we prepare for the kids to take and trade with their friends at school, I always bake a heart-shaped cake in honor of Maddie for her birthday. This year she turned 18 which meant she is now an adult. We've had to go through the court system to obtain legal guardianship over her so that we retain rights over her medical and personal care. That was inconvenient and a little pricey but the lawyers we worked with were very good to help us get through that process. 

I volunteer with the PTA association at the Junior High School to do a weekly fundraiser where we sell suckers during lunch time to the kids. It's been fun to go and watch the interactions and antics of the junior high age, what an awkward stage that is that I would never want to return to! It's been fun to check in on Tysen and he almost always stops by to say hi to me and get his free sucker. I had just finished my shift on Friday February 14th when I decided once again to check my online chart to see if any news had been posted about the biopsy. It had, and the words I read pretty much changed my life. That sounds dramatic but it's true. The report was there, and right at the top, it read Invasive Lobular Carcinoma, both locations. You always remember that moment in time when you hear those words: You Have Cancer. 

I was sitting in my car at the junior high Just getting ready to leave when I rather report. I guess it didn't fully hit me although I saw the words on the page, I didn't feel any different than I had 5 minutes before. In fact through this whole process, I haven't felt any different at all. I have no actual lumps in my breast. I didn't feel any reason or need or any pressing urgency to go get a mammogram. I'm only 47. I'm too young to have something like that.. something like cancer. I'm healthy, and strong, and feel really really good about where I'm at in life right now. I didn't want anything to go and upset that especially in such a major way. But there it was, staring me in the face. 

Immediately I turned to the internet and look everything up I can about ILC. Of course I immediately wanted to know what the next steps would be. Thus began the process of doctors, surgeons, oncologists, all the things that started to make my head swim. Before I had left the biopsy appointment, Dr Hammond was very insistent that I meet with the scheduler and get on the schedule with Dr Tittensor, who happens to be the top breast surgeon specialist in Utah if not in this whole area. I had been scheduled for an appointment with February 27th, and at the time felt very confident that that appointment would probably be canceled, finding everything to be benign. Now however, I was grateful for the forethought of Dr Hammond to get me on that schedule and knew that I would be keeping that appointment. I suspect he knew more about my condition than I did at the time, But obviously wasn't allowed to say it. I do remember asking him for his thoughts before I left the appointment. Just looking for some reassurance. Asking how certain he felt this would turn out to be cancer. He had said at the time he was about 80% certain. But even at that, Deb the ultrasound tech said that she had had a biopsy and it turned out to just be fibroid cysts. That's the reason they do these biopsies though is because it doesn't turn out that way for everybody. Sure seems like I drew the unlucky stick yet again.

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