March 13, 2023 – Although I knew deep down what I had found back in Memphis, I kept trying to rationalize it away every day by thinking that maybe it would just go away.  I didn’t want to deal with it, so I thought that I would just keep checking it daily and hopefully it would just start feeling smaller and would just eventually disappear.  As I continued to check it daily, it definitely was not disappearing.  I have always been one to sit and wait and try to “ride things out” and only go to a doctor if it was really absolutely necessary.  By the time March 13th rolled around, I was filled with so much fear that I made the phone call to my OBGYN.

March 15, 2023 – This was the first time I can ever recall just absolutely dreading the thought of going to see any doctor.  I can still remember exactly where I parked at my OBGYN’s office.  I still remember my OBGYN walking into the room and saying, “So you found a lump.”  As he proceeded to check, he quickly replied, “Oh good.  This just feels like a cyst.  It’s probably just a cyst.  But, just to make sure, I am going to send you for a mammogram and ultrasound.”  In the back of my mind I still knew exactly where this path was going to lead and that it was not just a cyst.  The nurse came in and told me that the Baylis couldn’t get me in for a month (probably because my situation wasn’t being marked as urgent), but deep down I knew I couldn’t wait a month for the next step to take place.  So I told her not to book anything, and I would call around to the other Memorial locations to see if they had anything sooner.  After making several calls, I was able to get a mammogram and ultrasound scheduled at Taylorville Memorial Hospital on March 22nd. 

Match 22, 2023 – Steve was out of town, so I remember having to take Emma with me.  I told her I just had some routine tests to do, and so she waited for me out in the waiting room.  They did the mammogram first and then the ultrasound.  It seemed like the ultrasound took forever, and I remember feeling as if the lady was definitely “concentrating” on the area where I had felt the lump, maybe even “over-concentrating” – which didn’t sit well in my mind.  At the end of the ultrasound, the lady said that she was sending the images over to the radiologist and that he would do a quick review before I left.  I thought that was interesting since I had always had various tests in the past and would be told that my doctor would call with the results.  As I sat there waiting, the phone in the room rang.  The lady picked it up, mumbled something, and then handed the phone to me.  I was pretty much frozen in fear at this point and all I remember the voice on the other end saying was, “The mass found is highly suspicious, but it probably won’t turn out to be anything.  However, you will need to be sent for a biopsy.  That’s the only way we will really know what this is.”  I handed the phone back to the lady and all I could think of was Emma out in the waiting room and I had to keep myself together and put a smile back on my face until I could get behind some closed doors at home.  That drive from Taylorville to Springfield was an extremely long one.  I felt like I was in a bad dream and just wanted to wake-up ASAP.

Looking back on these events that took place from March 4th – 22nd, I can clearly see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this very fact:  God is never late.  Never early.  But always right on time. ❤️