No, I wasn't busy. In December laziness just took over. Not common laziness. I just grew tired for no absolute reason, breathless after climbing up one flight of stairs, enjoying the sight of ceilings than horizons. So there I was, like a zombie until the mid of January...
Then the inevitable happened. I noticed two painful lumps at the lower outer quadrant of my left breast. After the failure with my daughter I was really looking foward to breastfeeding this time round, and I seriously thought the lumps were my breast getting ready for that because you know how your breasts go through confusing changes by the fourth/fifth month of pregnancy.
But by the end of the third week of January, the pain increased and so did the lumps, only they weren't round but sort of oblong. Well, not really. They just felt like swollen veins. The thought of cancer did cross my mind but the last time the lump was round and it wasn't painful, and the thought of having cancer while pregnant was just too horrific to consider...and there was this thing called hope...
Hope though gave me sleepless nights. And on the night of 29th January, I heard a voice in a dream insisting that I go for an ultrasound. Don't you think that is so Malaysian? That I only make a move after a dream? But really, that was my subconscious yanking me off my fat-laden butt and it worked. On the 3oth, I forced my way through an irritated clerk to get to the doctor, whom because of the long list of desperate patients, had to forego his Friday prayer.
Dr. Sulaiman told me the lumps looked suspicious, but they could be abcess. He scanned the axillar but that part was clear. I asked whether I need to hurry for a biopsy because my appointment was on 17th March, or should I just wait for the appointment date. He told me it's up to me. What kind of advice was that? I might as well ask my monkey. He was probably trying not to scare me off...and I hated doctors who gave hope when there was none...
What pushed me anyway was the fact that after many visits to the establishment for everything from mammogram to Pap Smear, this time he refused payment. The ultrasound and counsultation which cost RM120, were given free of charge.
Once home I called the hospital insisting on meeting my surgeon on 3rd March, which was granted once I explained what the ultrasound revealed. Ms. Aina was appalled that this happened because when I saw her in November, I was great. I went for an ultrasound guided biopsy and by this time, there were 3 lumps, one in the axillar. And a week later, they all turned up positive for Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma...or in layman's term, breast cancer.
And I thought NOT AGAIN!!! NOT NOW!!!!
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