Kelly Corrigan's
memoir of growing up—
the first time,
and the second time. [Click here] ....................................
by Kelly Corrigan,
36 years old, Stage III Breast Cancer Survivor
Kelly writes a bi-monthly column on everyday life. If you'd like us to email her columns to you, click -->
Monday, August 2
All my life, I have felt the anxiety of the untested. Nothing real has ever happened to me, no untimely deaths, no divorce, we never even moved. But then one night, well, you see, my three year old likes to wash my hair. She likes to be the mommy. She'd like to wash her little sister's hair too, but Claire won't have it. So, one night when Edward was away on business, the three of us were in the tub and I felt a rock in my breast. I touched it once and then forced my full attention to bathing the girls.
As I dried myself off, I knew I'd have to touch it again, just to be sure I was wrong. I wasn't, and I knew I wasn't, and so I started moving at a manic pace to get the girls in pajamas and in the car so I could get over to my OB's house and have an expert's hands feel me, feel it. It was dark outside but my OB, Dr. Birenbaum, was also my friend, Emily. The girls were thrilled to be riding in the car, singing along with an old Van Halen song, something their father turned them onto.
Emily gave me an exam on her sofa. We had a good laugh imagining her husband coming home to discover me topless, arms over my head, on my back, on the living room couch. Georgia and Claire were terribly charming, all of us whispering the whole time so Emily's baby wouldn't wake up. I left Berkeley 20 minutes later, relieved to have a doctor involved and willfully assuming it was a cyst. Emily would line up a mammogram for me in the next couple of days.
Back home, I called Edward. We ran through the highlights of his day and told each other how tired we were. He mentioned a sore throat. Then, in a carefully controlled tone, I said, "So, when I was in the bath with the girls, I was, you know, washing myself, and I found a lump." As I tried to describe it, I felt it again and again, each time, surprised to find still there.
