The beginning of a battle I was never ready for.
It was a regular morning and I obviously believed it would be a regular day. I woke up and reached out to the side of my bed in search of my phone as I fiddled with my pillows. It was 6:25 a.m. and I was in no mood to get up from bed to begin my day but I had to. I was to have an early meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.I hopped into the shower and as I scrubbed my upper body I felt it. It was right there. A wide lump in my left breast. For a moment, I was in denial because I had always been told that breast lumps felt like marbles or pebbles under the skin. This one definitely wasn’t like any marble. It felt stiff, a bit flat, had no actual shape and didn’t move. It had no feature similar to other breast lumps that had been described to me.
I dried up and got dressed, moving the worry to the back of my mind.“I can’t be bothered by this right now,” I repeated to myself as I walked to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
A CNN correspondent had just disclosed that Nigerians were being auctioned as slaves in the African country of Libya and it was my duty to meet with the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs to get answers on measures being taken to rescue our citizens from Libya.
That meeting kicked off a busy week for me and somehow I had succeeded in programming my mind to forget about the fact that I had a lump growing inside me.
The following week was less busy and I summoned the courage to head to the hospital for a check-up. The doctor asked me to do a scan and at the end of the session, I found out I actually had two lumps. One in each breast.I returned to the doctor and he expressed his concerns to me once he looked at the scan.He described the bigger lump which was the one I had found myself as “not well circumscribed and pretty large”.
“I was hoping the lump was just a cyst but from its features, it is obvious it is a tumorous lump.”
“I suggest we operate to take them out as soon as possible so that they don’t become a problem,” he said.
He explained the dangers of ignoring a lump and the need to test it to determine if it was malignant or benign as soon as possible.I wanted to take no chances so I scheduled my surgery for the next available date.Two days after, I returned to the hospital alone for my surgery in hopes that it would be successful and I could leave the hospital that same day.I prefer to deal with such issues alone so that the nerves of my support system don’t get to me and make me freak out for no reason.
By 9 o’clock a.m. I was taken to the theater and all I remember is waking up three hours later with an I.V. in my hand and a heavy chest. I looked down and saw that my chest was heavily bandaged and a few minutes later the doctor walked in.
“The surgery was very quick and successful Miss Jean. I can say that we took out the lumps on both breasts smoothly and you will be able to leave the hospital once you feel strong enough to do so.”
“The samples have been taken to the lab and you will be informed of the results in two weeks,” he said.
"Okay doctor but can I have a painkiller? I am in severe pain now," I pleaded.
A few minutes later, the doctor returned with a syringe and injected me with its contents. I very quickly was fast asleep.
It was 6:35 p.m. when I was woken up by voices in my room. I opened my eyes to see a couple of my friends having conversations among themselves which made me happy. I woke up feeling a lot better and informed the nurses on duty that I was ready to go home. After a couple of minutes, the doctor came to my room with my signed discharge papers and bid me farewell as I packed my bags to head home. I seriously hoped this would be the last time I would ever sleep in a hospital bed.
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