It's probably nothing

This short phrase was at first my brushing off the initial flush of panic I felt when I first discovered the little lump in my left breast. It was the end of August, 2003. I was getting dressed after my shower and was checking myself as I did at least monthly. I felt it right away and knew it was not there before. I checked the other side, then the left side again. It's still there, it feels solid. Several thoughts shot through my mind in a split second with an accompanying burst of the nervous feeling you get sometimes in your stomach: "What if it's cancer?" "Maybe it's just my hormones and I'm lumpy this week." "It's probably nothing."

I called my doctor that very day (in case it was more than just "nothing") and had an exam later that week. They sent me for a mammogram the next day. I sat there in the waiting room of the imaging center, trying to blend into the crowd of patients and family members who were chatting, looking at magazines that don't really interest them, watching the news on the TV, scanning the bland nondiscript artwork on the walls, or sleeping.

I was thinking that I wished I had asked my husband to come along. Then I remembered that Jesus said He would always be with me, and I closed my eyes and tried to imagine him sitting in the waiting room chair beside me. It was a comfort.

They performed the mammogram and asked me to wait. If you've never had a mammogram, they are nothing to be afraid of, but are very weird. They put your breast on this little platform that you stand next to. (It is heated - thank goodness) Then they lower a plastic paddle onto the top of your breast. They continue to lower it until your breast is flattened about as much as is humanly possible, then they tell you to stand completely still while they x-ray. As if you could do anything but stand still with your breast in the clamp of this machine! It does not hurt, but just feels tight for a moment. I was so thankful the technician was a woman and that it was over so quickly. She came back in after checking the films and told me that nothing appeared on the mammogram, but since we could palpate the lump they were going to do an ultrasound.

The ultrasound was more helpful. A small,1 cm solid lump was definitely in my left breast. The radiologist on staff came in to tell me about it and said that since it was solid it should "definitely come out." That didn't sound very good to me, but I told myself that doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. It's probably nothing. He even said that it could be any number of things. Women have lumps all the time that are benign, but need to be checked nonetheless.

So, my doctor's office set me up with a surgeon for a consultation and to set up a biopsy. It all seemed very routine, but I was starting to feel a little anxious about my little lump.

"It's probably nothing," would change from a brushing off of initial fear to a cry of hope, a desperate hope that I wouldn't have to face cancer or some other life-threatening disease. Friends and family would say this little phrase to me many times before I found out what it really was. We were all hoping it was nothing.