It was a Wednesday morning, Shamarion and I just finished packaging up some hammered shape cookies that was to be delivered by noon that day. After making the delivery that afternoon, I called the doctor to see if he had received results of the biopsy. He said "no, let me make a phone call and check it out and I'll call you right back." He did. He called back in about 10 minutes. His response was, "Mrs. Bailey, It's not good." I said what you do you mean? He was rambling on about something and all I heard was carcinoma. I had heard that word before and knew it meant cancer. He was a bit antsy and seemed more nervous than I did. I remember asking him questions he couldn't answer. He then referred me to someone that could answer my questions. He made the appointment himself for that afternoon at 2:00 and Shamarion and I were there right on time. This doctor looked at my reports and was in awe. He said "ma'am, I'm not going to cut any corners with you, at your age I recommend a double mastectomy." I'm still in shock about all this, so I'm sitting, looking out the window, kind of listening, not really because I knew Shamarion was already zeroing in and listening at every little thing, not missing a beat. Well we decided to leave there and get a second opinion. As we were on our way out, the front desk nursed asked, what do I plan to do? At that moment all I could do was cry. This was for real, but in the back of my mind I'm still saying to myself that they made a mistake. I didn't know what to say. I think I said something like, I'll call you or something. I don't even remember. I just wanted to leave. We got in the car and drove home. Shamarion was saying how we were going to call and make an appointment somewhere else. I was like fine...let's do it! We went home, she left, the kids came home, she came back. When she came back she had 3 books. A journal, A book for entertainment reading and a book on juicing. Now I thought she had gone home and there she was out shopping. She made the call to to set up the appointment for the second opinion and they called us back within an hour. The next day we made an appointment with an oncologist. The doctor had given me copies of my biopsy report.
I brought them home and placed them on a stack of papers, not even worrying about what's on it. A few days later I decided to pick up the papers and look at them. I was secretly hoping that the report would have the wrong name on it. Boy was I wrong. There my name was...as big as day. And that's when things changed.
