TBT - Tears, Fears and a Bone Scan

This photo was taken over 8 years ago. A day after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  My life, my body and my hair would never really be the same. I think we were really all still in shock, we did not know what was to come. I carry the physical wounds and we all carry the emotional wounds. Every day since my treatment ended in 2007 the cancer experience has faded a bit more each day….

Until last Thursday.

I have been having progressively more pain in my hip bones… mostly my right hip. It comes and goes. Sometimes after I run or dance, I am in extreme pain and I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I also sit a lot at work, my job has required a crazy amount of hours and I think that has made the situation even worse. My oncologist ordered a bone scan as breast cancer can metastasize to the bone.

I have always been a proponent of early detection… but this time I really did not want to know or face the fact that my cancer could be back. I also really did not want to spend the $1400.00 on the scan, but my daughter and a close friend urged me to:

 “just do it”.

The morning leading up to the scan, I was becoming more worried. I went to the imaging center and received the radioactive injection and then waited the 3 hours before I had the actual scan. I went to get some lunch at a place that I used to frequent in my past life, as I like to call it. I think that may have even made it harder to keep it together. Thank goodness for sunglasses!

I returned to the imaging center and the technician was a very nice man. I lay down on the machine and he wrapped me in warm blankets. He asked that I lay very still and the test started. In that instant I was taken back to the days following this picture, MRI’s and PET scans and a bone scan, talks of chemo and hair loss and a mastectomy and reconstruction and possible radiation. The tears started to gently roll from the sides of my eyes, down my temples and into my ears. Have you ever lain flat on your back and cried? It is a very weird feeling. A different sort of a wet Willy. At a certain point when you continue to cry it becomes hard to lay still AND still breathe. The tech came out to re-position me and offered me a tissue… he was so sweet he even wiped the tears from my eyes.

The test only took about 20 minutes and then the wait began. On Tuesday, I called the doctor to ask for the results but they did not have them. Today, the wait was over…

The nurse called… which is always a good sign in my book:

My first call was to Nina and then Dante so they would not have to worry any longer. 

What a relief, I will still have to see some other doctors to try and figure out what the cause of the pain is, but the best news is that it is not

CANCER!