One year ago tomorrow....

I didn't want to post this on the actual anniversary because I didn't want to overshadow Sav's birthday. But I wanted to take the opportunity to remember what happened one year ago, tomorrow.

I was bustling around trying to find the ice cream that Sav wanted to make her ice cream pie/cake for her 11th birthday. I had to stop at three different stores to find the right kind, but it was worth it because it was the exact kind that she wanted.

I stopped at my friend's house so that I could assemble the ice cream pie/cake and then put it into my friend's freezer, I didn't have room in mine.

As I was talking to my friend she asked me if I had received a phone call from my doctor's office yet on the results of my biopsy. I had had an endometrial biopsy about 10 days before. I hadn't heard from them yet and my friend encouraged me to call. I was still at my friend's house and used her telephone. I reached the doc's office and told the office staff that I needed to get the results of my biopsy. While I was waiting for the results, one of the medical assistant's got on the line and said to wait a little longer, and I didn't even realize that there might be a problem. I even got disconnected from their office once and had to call back. I sat on the line waiting when my PA came on the line. Her name is Sue, and I love her. As soon as Sue came on the line I knew something was up because you never get the PA or the Doc on the line when results are normal.

Sue read me the lab report and said I had endometrial hyperplasia. I knew immediately that this was bad. She said that she had talked to the doc in the office and they weren't going to mess around, they were referring me to Andrew Soisson. I knew from my work at the hospital in transcription that Dr. Soisson was a gynecologic oncologist.

(An interesting thing about the biopsy is that when I was in Sue's office and she was trying to get the tissue for the biopsy, she was struggling to obtain the tissue. She said that it was a quick, simple procedure, and really it was, but apparently this time it was more difficult than normal. Sue was saying to me that maybe we wouldn't get the sample after all, and I was fine with that so I said, Okay, don't worry about it then. Right at that moment, the instrument slipped into where it needed to go and she got the sample.)

I sat, stunned, at my friend's kitchen table listening to the results. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I thanked her for the information and hung up. I told my friend what Sue had said and my friend knew also that this was not good. I quickly left because I had to get home.

At home my kids had arrived home from school and were with my sister Amy. Amy and her husband and kids were living with us temporarily as they had just moved to Utah a couple of weeks before.

I was shaken and trying not to cry. This was Sav's birthday and I could barely hold it together long enough to ask her how her day had been, it being her birthday. She was visibly worried and I excused myself to go upstairs.

Amy came up and I wept on her shoulder. I was sure I had cancer. I called Harold and unintelligibly told him about my conversation with Sue and told him to come home immediately.

The caller ID on the phone showed that the doc's office had tried to call me earlier that day, but I had been too busy running around for the birthday celebration and wasn't home for the call.

When Harold arrived he was asking a lot of questions that I didn't have the answers to. I called Sue back up and asked all kinds of questions, and asked her to email me a copy of my lab report. I asked her directly if I had cancer. She didn't ever answer me directly. She did say that if it was cancer, that endometrial cancer is the "best" to get.

Harold was stoic. It's interesting how when I am completely losing it he can really hold it together.

We had to get downstairs so that we could finish getting Sav's birthday dinner ready.

I can't remember when I called the rest of my family, I am pretty sure it was the same night because I am the kind of person that needs the support of family immediately. I don't hold anything back and share all the information I can to rally my family around me.

My appt with the oncologist was for two days later, it was a long wait.

(This story goes on until December 22, with stops along the way at the oncologists office, the referral to Huntsman Cancer Center, at Thanksgiving, surgery and the final call about pathology. I will write about those events when those days arrive.)