Ruth Gehring

Portrait of Cancer Ruth Gehring

CANCER: a word I have feared my whole life now defines and absorbs my very being. I'm now a statistic. I'm now desperately praying to end up as one of the good statistics.




Thoughts of this word first began the middle of September, 2018, mere weeks prior to a move from Richmond, Michigan to Columbus, Ohio. During a routine self-exam of my breasts I felt a lump. I've had lumps come and go over the years, so in the chaos of packing for the move, I had no other thought than to keep an eye on it.




We moved during the first week of October, followed by a flurry of unpacking, arranging furniture and hanging pictures. But as I kept checking the lump, I realized that something felt different. I looked back through the calendar to remember when I had my last mammogram and saw that my 3-D digital imaging had just been done in January with a normal result. Since insurance only covers one mammogram per year, I opted to continue monitoring it.

By mid-November it felt more prominent and was really nagging my conscience. I made an appointment with a new doctor for a physical, November 27, just after Thanksgiving. I knew I would need a doctor to order a mammogram in order to bypass the insurance rule. Upon examination, my new doctor shared my concern and also pointed out another suspicious area that I had not noticed. With his request I could have gotten in for diagnostic imaging the very next day if it were not for our recent move. I had to put in a request for my previous imaging to be sent to them first. Now, why is it that a digital image can't be sent with the click of a button? For whatever reason, it caused me to wait another eight days for my diagnostic mammogram appointment.




I knew that I might very likely go straight from mammography to ultrasound imaging, but I began to have a sinking feeling when the ultrasound technician got quieter. Then came the feeling of dread when the doctor was called in to look at the images; then a feeling of fear when they took me down the hall to get me squeezed into the schedule of the cancer surgeon (who my new general practice doctor had already selected for me); then a feeling of abject terror when the physician's assistant went through the explanation of the likelihood that this was indeed cancer and what steps would take place next.