I descended into hypochondria at age 39, when I found a tiny lump in my breast.
I descended into hypochondria at age 39, when I found a tiny lump in my breast. Normally, I wouldn’t have worried. My breasts are naturally very dense and lumpy, and my doctor had never seemed concerned. But this particular lump appeared during the most difficult time of my life—in the midst of watching my father die of cancer. Right after I found it, I went with my family to Dad’s oncologist’s office, where we would find out whether a hellish bout of radiation and chemo had killed the cancer growing in Dad’s esophagus. While we waited, I looked at one of those plastic cards that explain how to do a breast self-exam. I was still holding the card when the doctor came in and clipped some x-rays to a light board. He pointed to a small dark spot on my father’s liver. The cancer was spreading.
When I could stop crying, I realized I was still clutching the breast-exam card. It seemed like a sign. I went home and Googled “breast lump,” and what I read made my hands shake and my heart race. Suddenly, I couldn’t think of anything else. In the shower, at the dinner table, driving the kids to school, all I could think about was dying.
