January & February

cbyusBy Charlotte Byus
This article will have words like “breast” and “cancer” in it, if you want to stick your head in the sand, do not read this or next week either. Now, let me tell you a story that started in January with my annual doctor’s appointment. You know blood work, Mammogram and truth to Dr about the last year. Well the good news is after the thyroid surgery last year I have lost about 16 pound, yea.

My mammogram was scheduled for 17th of Jan., it was cancelled because of weather, so RR had an appointment on the 29th of Jan., so I scheduled my apt for the same day. Save gas. They found something. My second mammogram was in the first of February, more intense smashing and 3D image. Yep, there they are. Thank goodness RR was with me holding my hand and a shoulder to lean on. In comes a Dr. from Biopsy to see when would I like to do this procedure. They had an opening now or sometime next week. We choose now and off I went down the hall saying to myself, “I’m not scared, I’m not afraid!” Dear Lord I hope you are with me today. They started by introducing everyone and my beautiful tech from imaging, Jennifer, was holding my hand. Then we started, first was the good stuff so you do not feel that really big needle as it goes searching for the bad stuff. Snip, Snip, Snip for the testing. Three days later, I received the results and yes they are malignant.

As you know our parade for Mardi Gras was February 10th. I had asked Georgia if I could help with her two golf carts, she said “Yes.” Riding as my shotgun was Susan Free, once again the Lord was with me. Georgia was in the back seat as Cat in the Hat holding my hand all the way. Along with us was Vickie and her daughter, not only is Vickie my friend, she sometimes is my back bone. In our front cart was Sherri Morgan, sharing stories of her journey to boost me along.

Ok, I can do this. First I looked up this type on the internet. Read all of the pages and wrote down some questions to ask my new Dr. Feb 14, first meeting with Dr Chao, I had a page and half of questions on paper with room for answers. RR was there holding my hand and Dr. Chao was wonderful. She was very surprised about my papers and very proud of me for taking hold of this journey. She took the papers away from me and started drawing pictures of my type of cancer and how we were going to attack this. Then she started writing in answers to my other questions and explaining to RR and me what she was writing. We chose March 1st for surgery.

February 27 was my next appointment and this was with Dr. Hatch in radiation. Wow, what a lady! She met RR and I in an examine room and started to chat with us. Then she said, you have some good questions, lets go to my office and do some studies on your questions. Off we went. I have lots of reservations on radiation. In the early 90’s when my brother-in-law was dying of cancer, the lady in the next room was dying of radiation burning. Most of her organs were burnt from radiation, a horrible way to die. This has stuck in my mind all this time and I was more afraid of this than the cancer. She took both of us by the hand and led us through the many different parts of radiation and the changes that have happened over the years. She and Dr Chao had already discussed my test and conversed over the surgery to take place on March 1st.

Stay tuned.

I am only writing about this because I love every person that may read my stories. I want to share the good and the bad of my journey so you will make the decision to head straight to the Dr. and schedule a mammogram appointment. The sooner the better, as you will read in the next chapter of this story.

[3-5-2018]

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2 Responses to “January & February”

  1. Karen Rush says:

    Oh Charlotte! Prayers for you! May God wrap his loving arms around you and your loved ones.

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