When I found a lump in my breast, I didn’t want to tell anyone…

“Mom, I’m very tired. I think I’m going to stay home and go to sleep, okay?”
That’s what I said to my mom as she left for a New Year’s Eve celebration with the family. The fact was that I felt a weird, piercing pain in my right breast and I was too worried to party. But, being only 13 and never having suffered any major medical problem, I thought, hey, a good night’s sleep and I should be fine, right?
Well, the next morning I felt a small ball in my breast. Something that to my knowledge should not have been there. Something that hurt and was alien to me, and incredibly scary. Tears of fear welled up in my eyes. The ball was about the size of a medium-sized gumball, but I couldn’t see it through my breast. I only felt the strange, sore kind of pain and I could feel it with my fingers. I had never heard of this kind of thing happening to anyone else and I was terrified.
When I told my mother she reacted with unusual calmness and said that it was probably a cyst. I had never heard of that either. She mentioned that my grandmother had had something like that and I felt better. It had happened before! The day after that, I saw my doctor.
In the waiting room, I reflected on my feelings of anxiety. I didn’t know what was happening and all sorts of scary questions raced around in my head. Is it removable? Will the throbbing pain ever stop? Is my body trying to give me a hint about a bigger problem? I just wanted to know what it was and then I wanted it gone. The absolute worst thing was not knowing.

‘So, you have cancer?’
When the doctor came into the examination room, he said “So, you think you have cancer?” I almost died. The thought of cancer had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t seriously considered it. I thought cancer is an “old” disease, one that young people don’t have to worry about.
I had the same doctor for as long as I could remember but it felt incredibly awful to have him examine my breast. I clenched my fists, struggling to be calm, and I tried not to make eye contact because I was so humiliated. I rolled my eyes upward, trying hard to think of something else to escape the horribly embarrassing situation.
He told me that it wasn’t cancer and that it was probably a cyst. But I couldn’t help detecting a bit of anxiety in his face when he handed me the referral to the surgeon’s ward at the Children’s Hospital. I thought it would be over, but now I had to go through the whole thing over again for another doctor. I could have screamed! Why was I having to go through this hellish ordeal? Why was this happening to me?
At the Children’s Hospital, my mother and I were instructed to wait in the emergency room. We sat in tense anxiety for two hours. When they finally called my name, I was led into a small, white room, trimmed with pastel-colored flowers and smelling of alcohol. After about another half hour of waiting, a young doctor walked in, read my folder, and handed me a robe. I changed into it, feeling reassured that something was being done to solve the problem and to get me back home. The doctor examined me and once again I closed my eyes and clenched at the arm of the chair I was sitting on. I wanted this over, and fast.
Afterward, when I had put on my shirt, the doctor explained to me that it was indeed a cyst, probably resulting from a blocking up of one of my milk nodes. What is a milk node? I had no idea, but I was glad to see that there was something concrete about the problem, that it wasn’t just something that I had dreamed up. The doctor even drew a picture for me and explained how the cyst had developed. I felt easier about the situation, but now more than ever I wanted it out.
My mother and I then went up to the fourth floor to the surgeon’s ward and waited in a room full of restless, sick children. All of the seats were taken up and so I stood next to the window, waiting. When the receptionist finally called my name I was actually eagar to go inside and face yet another examination, this time from a bespeckled, grandfatherly doctor who tried to make the examination go as quickly and as comfortably as possible. He said that before he could determine what action to take to remove the cyst, I would have to have an X-ray done.
It hurt more than ever when the X-ray technician moved the tracking device over my breast. He had to press hard to pick up the cyst. I lay there, in the dark, with my blouse open, hurting and so scared that I would not make it out of this ordeal.
I was told to come back the next morning when the X-rays were done, when the doctor would either hospitalize me for a biopsy or remove the contents of the cyst by some other alternative method. The words meant nothing to me. I was going home. I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed and forget this terrible day.
The next day I went back and the doctor decided to remove the contents of the cyst with a syringe. My mother held my hand tightly as the doctor inserted the long needle—with no anesthetic! I shifted my eyes toward the ceiling, telling myself that the incredibly piercing pain would soon go away. I lost all thought as the full force of the hurt hit me. Tears fell and slid down the sides of my head, but I forced myself to look at the white and brown colored fluid filling up the syringe. After the needle was taken out, a large, fat droplet of blood was wiped off and a bandage was placed on my breast. The ache was gone, the weight that I had grown used to was gone and I was walking down the hall, the syringe in my hand, in no time.
We took the elevator down, deposited the milky fluid at the lab and checked out. It took a few days for the cut to heal, but the experience of being so scared that I might have cancer, of having to go through the humiliating examinations, of having something in my body that could cause so much pain—this experience would haunt me for a long time.
I can no longer think of cancer or any other disease as an “old” disease. They’re not. I recognized my own vulnerability and I became more aware than ever that it is very important to be educated in how these diseases develop and what we can do to prevent them early on.
It is important to develop healthy habits now that will accompany us into the future, preventing debilitating diseases. About one out of every nine women in the United States will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. Early detection and prompt treatment are what acount for the high survival rate—about 91 percent today. Still an estimated 44,800 deaths occured in 1991. For women, it’s the second cause of cancer-related deaths.
Early steps can prevent the deaths. Awareness can promote early detection and treatment. Eating healthy, not smoking, and watching alcohol consumption are things that can be done now to protect us later. A low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-fiber diet has been shown to decrease the chances of developing cancer. There is no such thing as self-diagnosis, and although breast and testicular cancer among teens is rare, it is important to consult a physician if you notice anything strange. I was so scared, but when I talked to my friends, I heard about it happening to other people and I didn’t feel so alone.

Leave a Comment