Jul

According to Wikipedia, most of the time when you get called back for a diagnostic mammogram, the likelihood is NOT that you have cancer. For every 1,000 U.S. women have a screening mammogram, about 7% (70) will be called back for a diagnostic session (though they do point out that some studies estimate this number as higher). This I am not liking so far … what it means is that I had a 93% of NOT getting that call … but I did.

About 10 of these will be referred for a biopsy; the remaining 60 are found to be of benign cause. So this means I have a 1 in 7 chance of needing a biopsy after my “further testing” next week.

Of the 10 referred for biopsy, about 3.5 will have a cancer and 6.5 will not. Whoa! Although still in my favor, those odds are not nearly as tipped in favor of the no-cancer side as I would’ve thought.

Of the 3.5 who do have cancer, about 2 have a low stage cancer that will be essentially cured after treatment. The other 1.5 … they don’t say what happens to them. Even more whoa! That means after a positive biopsy (meaning a biopsy that says you have cancer, which doesn’t sound very positive to me), you have essentially a 50/50 chance of have the really bad shit.

Things I already knew and did NOT have to learn in the past 24 hours … I am not the most patient person in the world. Waiting sucks.

Things I have been glad to be reminded of in the past 24 hours … my husband, although not perfect, can be very, VERY supportive and comforting. Not to mention provide great stress relief!

So … there is an 85% chance that I will go back to the Breast Center next week, and everything will be fine. But, there was a 93% chance that I wouldn’t have to go back, and I do … so that 85% is not as comforting as it once was. I guess I will continue to oscillate between calm and panicked for the next four days, 21 hours, and 39 minutes. Not that I am counting…

  

Apr

Well, tonight is the 1st night of Pesach, and we were having a few people over for a seder. I say “were” because we had to cancel – Sami was home sick today. You might recall we had to cancel a Rosh Hashanah dinner because of our car accident back in the fall () . Honestly, I am really starting to think that this year has been jinxed! And that maybe we should stop trying to entertain. Sigh…

  

Dec

Craig is in the hospital. We were going about our normal day, when he got a phone call saying to go to the ER or he would die. There really just aren’t words…

It’s 3:00 am now, that phone call came 11 hours ago, but it seems like eternity. His kidneys have failed. All of a sudden. They found it through a blood test that his nurse practitioner added on as an afterthought at his regular checkup today. We still don’t know much. We waited in the ER for 8 hours before he got taken up to his room. He STILL hasn’t seen a doctor. They’ve taken him off all his medicines, and are hoping they can reverse the damage. The process has been maddening.

He sent me home, so I could take the kids to school in the morning – they are staying overnight with my friend Kate. But I want to be with him at the hospital. I can’t sleep at all. Like I said, there really just aren’t words…