Blinding Trust (Mitchell Family, #7)(36)

My body sank down on my couch and I just started bawling. A month ago I would have thought that my family could get through anything. Now, with these new developments, I wondered if that was actually possible.

I looked around at the pictures of our family. The one on the coffee table was of the five of us. The kids were all smiling and Colt was looking down at me with a grin on his face. I traced over him.

I didn’t want to think about what the doctor was going to say. I knew what it meant to have a lump in the breast. I also knew that it was a fifty-fifty chance that the results could mean cancer.

I held onto that picture while I continued to cry in the quiet, dark house. It was a good thing that Colt’s mother had the girls, because there just wasn’t anyway I would have been able to keep them occupied without losing it.

I wanted to call Colt, but he already had enough on his plate. Surely my news could wait until he got back. I still didn’t know anything.

I considered calling my mother, but I couldn’t let myself worry her. This was something that I was just going to have to suck up and handle myself until I knew more.

With the exception of the two hours I got after I had taken a valium, I didn’t sleep at all. How could I, when my life could be on the line? I prayed to God for it to be a mistake in the test. It happens all the time. Surely, I could be the one that it happened to. I was a good wife and mother, and a devoted Christian. Not that anyone deserved to have something wrong with them, but hadn’t I been dealt with enough in my young life already?

I arrived at the doctor’s office an hour before my appointment. My palms were sweaty and I hated that I was going in all alone. Wasn’t this the type of thing you had a support group for?

The front desk lady must have sensed my eagerness. She went in the back and had the doctor come out to greet me. He opened the door for me to enter into the back. “Savanna. You’re early.”

I felt embarrassed. Didn’t anyone else feel nervous like I did? “Is that a problem?”

“Of course not. We can meet before the first appointment arrives. Come in and sit down.” He walked out of his office and came back in with my chart. Once he sat down in front of me, he opened up the large envelope that contained my mammogram results. While he pointed to a certain area with his pen, he looked up at me. “This is the lump that I felt during your examination. I was thinking that it was going to be just a pocket of collected tissue. The mammogram shows that it is in fact a mass. It isn’t very big, but any mass can be a concern. I’d like to get you in to have it biopsied this week.”

My mouth just dropped. I got that he was a professional and he did these sorts of things all day, but he did it without emotion. “So, how serious is it? Should I be worried, because I have to tell you, I am scared to death.”

He fidgeted with his pen. Maybe it was how he separated himself from his patient’s emotional breakdowns. “I can tell you it’s nothing, but right now, we just don’t know. It’s located in a difficult area of the breast and until we get in there and can test it properly, we just don’t know what we are dealing with.”

“Is it too soon to talk about outcomes? Maybe I am jumping the gun, but if it’s…if it’s cancer, what are my options?”

He held both hands up and lifted his brows. “We don’t want to jump the gun here, Savanna. This could be just a growth that won’t put you in any danger. Talking about options before we know anything will only make you worry more. Thousands of women get biopsies and half of them turn out to be nothing.”

I stared down at my shaking hands. “So how do we find out?” My eyes were starting to water. I got that his job was to be informative and he was used to giving people bad news, but it didn’t make it any easier for me. I was going through this without my husband and dealing with a step-son that may or may not even care if I lived or died.

“I can see if I can get you in to see the oncologist this week. He may just go ahead and do the biopsy without a first appointment. Did you want me to go ahead with that?”

I was too shaken up to answer, so I just nodded and put my head down.

The doctor got up and walked out of the office for a second. I pulled my knees into my chest and the tears started to fall down my face. I thought about my family, in fact, it was all I could think about.

What would happen if I died?

How hard would it be for them to get by without me?

How long would I have to live?

Would they be scared if I lost my hair?

I thought about my girls growing up without a mother.

I was overwhelmed with hopeless fear.

The doctor came back into the office to find me an emotional wreck. He sat down and cleared his throat. “Savanna, I realize this is scary. You aren’t alone. Take it day by day until we figure out what’s going on.” He wrote something down in his laptop. “They are going to squeeze you in on Thursday. Can you be there at seven in the morning?”

It was early, but nothing that I wasn’t used to. “Yes.”

“When you walk out stop by the front desk. Kay will give you paperwork that their office faxed over to us. Just take that with you. They’re located in the building behind this one. He knows that I want a rush on the labs. I can’t guarantee that we will have them before the weekend. It usually takes seven days, so I imagine four is a rushed order. If you don’t hear anything before Wednesday next week, just give us a call.”