Day Two - Evening

No matter where one ends up geographically, if your roots are embedded in New York, THAT is where you are from. After we returned home from an afternoon of surrealism, I spoke with my aunt and simply said, "It's not good." She simply said, "Hang up. I'll call you back." And with that the FAMILY took over.

When you have a cousin who's husband is Professor, Vice Chairman and Director of Rhinology in the Department of Otolaryngology at New York University Medical Center, and who's daughter just finished her fellowship in Radiology and starts a job at Lenox Hill Radiologists within two weeks, you get out of the way and let the wheels of family take over. My aunt called back within the hour and said,

Call her doctor right and get all of her films and reports for as far back as they will give you. If you can get them tonight you have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Julie Mitnick at Murray Hill Radiology. If you can't get them tonight the soonest appointment we could get was on Tuesday. Call me back when you know.

That was that. I hung up, called the imaging place and was told it would take them 24 hours to gather everything. I couldn't get them to move any faster because I wanted that day's ultrasound and their records office was already closed for the day--it was 3:55 PM....typical. So I said I would pick everything up the next afternoon, called my aunt back and told her to confirm the appointment for Tuesday---and she did.

That night was fairly uneventful. No one had actually used the "C" word to my mother so she was in huge denial of the seriousness of the situation. I chose to allow her that little bit of sanity for the rest of the night.

When I got home, I went out for my daily 2.5 mile run as I learned one very important lesson back in 1991 during Mom's first surgery and again in 1998 when Dad began to decline: take care of myself or I'm useless to her. Halfway through the run I "lost it." I kept running, but I'm sure I was quite a sight.

Day Two - Initial Doctor Appointment

Gotta tell ya, I really do not like this doctor. Never have. She's nice enough but hindsight is 20-20, and my hindsight slammed on the brakes so hard today that my seatbelt almost broke loose.

I get my Mom to her doctor--a very basic internist--who looks at Mom's breast and starts asking those really stupid questions: "How long has it been like this?" "Didn't you feel the lump?" "Couldn't you see that it looks different from the other one?" Gee Einstein, apparently the 84-year old woman, who is in a wheelchair, who can't turn her head to the right because 3 vertebrate in her neck are fused, who can't lift her right arm because of a frozen shoulder, who has horrible osteoporosis, COULDN'T AND DIDN'T SEE THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG!

Yes, you detect hostility from me. Why? Simple. It all comes down to hindsight. Out of the blue it dawned on me at that very moment that in the last 6 or 7 years this doctor had not once given my Mom a REAL physical! It was always a quick reading of her blood pressure, a listen to her lungs and heart THROUGH her shirt, and the ending question of "do you need any precriptions?" That was it. This doctor had NEVER once LOOKED at my Mom's body to see if anything might be going awry.

So yes, I'm angry. I'm pissed and I'm furious. Not only with the doctor for what could easily be turned into a case of medical negligence, but also because I didn't realize it sooner!

About 30 minutes later we were at an ultrasound appointment where Mom goes for her annual mammograms--right, the same place that never saw anything suspicious. And yes, the ultrasound detected a very large mass in Mom's right breast. The doctor there then spent the next 20 minutes trying to get my Mom's doctor (the one we just came from) on the phone--but of course, her number is busy. IT'S ALWAYS BUSY! Finally he said, "Drive over there right now and demand to be seen. I'll keep trying to call and you should also try to get through. If you do have her call me immediately."

So we drove back to the first doctor's office...and yes I got the nurse on the phone before we arrived and she acted like she didn't know who I was. (bitch) Needless to say, I pulled up at the office, wheeled my mother inside and was greeted with an "I'm so sorry" from the doctor. Essentially it was a full blown death sentence being pronounced! The next few moments were filled with more "I'm so sorries" and an appointment with a breast surgeon to do a biopsy the next afternoon. As we were leaving the doctor asks me if I want any meds for my nerves. I wanted to punch her dead in the face but I didn't. I simply said "No, I'm fine. I need to deal with this since no one else is." She didn't get the cynacism. Shocker.

The Day all Hell Broke Loose

There I was, checking email in the student center at ISU during the BOA Summer Symposium...actually I was done with email and was on the phone with UD's IT Help Center trying to figure out why I couldn't gain access to my course rosters (stupid other university firewalls were the apparent cause). Call waiting beeped in my ear, I looked at the phone to see who it was--it was Mom. I thought: "Just spoke to her an hour ago and everything was fine. She must have forgotten to tell me something. I'll call her back in a few."

I finished with IT--they couldn't help....surprise....and called my back. She was upset and sounded scared as she announced: "My right nipple is bleeding."

Right then and there the world changed.

I was anything but pleasant because here I was 1200 miles away with no way to get home unless I was able to get a last minute flight. I argued with her to call her doctor--she finally gave in and called. The reason for not calling: "I have no way to get there so why should I call?" Gee, thanks for the guilt. I offered to get a nurse to stay with her but oh no, her pride would have none of that. So here we were, arguing on the phone about her calling her doctor to see what to do because Lord knows the daughter who is 1200 miles away is a better expert!

When she finally hung and called, I hopped online and booked the first flight out of Bloomington, Illinois. How I got a flight for $170 I'll never know, but I did. And now I had 2 hours to get all my shit packed and to the airport. And when I arrived at the airport I found I had successfully booked a flight for JULY 24th and not JUNE 24th. Helplessness and stress finally shut anger and frustration down: I went hysterical on the ticket agent. ...and he got me out of there on the next flight.

I managed to get to Mom's apartment at 1 AM....took one look at her breast and knew we were in trouble.