Before the operation

I was once taught that each story has to have a beginning, middle and end so I guess I should start at the beginning which sort of makes it easier for anyone reading it.

I first noticed a lump under my left armpit, not in my breast as we woman are taught to look for.  I will be honest in saying that this was in May and we had booked a holiday at the end of May so I decided to go to the doctor after the holiday; maybe not a good idea but that is what happened.  I won’t bore you with all the details so the short story is: visit doctor; arrange for tests; tests not conclusive and then go back to for an echo sound.  I guess this was when the we both realised that this was more than just a lump as the clinic where I had the echo sound done prepared the results while we waiting – unheard of in Portugal - sent me immediately to talk to my own doctor. 

We could see God’s hand in this as normally when you go to our doctor, unless you have something serious, you wait for ages for an appointment.  We walked in and within an half hour we were sitting talking to the doctor; or at least Bill was due to my appalling Portuguese.  Within one week I had an appointment at the Institudo Portugués de Oncologia (IPO) which is one of Portugal’s top cancer hospitals and had had a biopsy.   

Within three weeks we knew the worst, the lump under my arm was not only cancerous but it had spread from my breast to under my arm.   I would have to have the left breast removed and the lymph nodes removed from under my arm.  If you are like me the lymph nodes don’t mean much but as I discovered they do some really important things, I will explain more later.


Bill's View

During the summer of 2010 Tina asked me to speak to the doctor about getting her a ‘routine’ mammogram.  She didn’t bother to tell me that a small lump under her armpit was causing her pain and discomfort, but it probably wouldn’t have meant much to me if she had.  Apart from the aging process, both of us had been remarkably well and very active for the whole of our married lives and we didn’t really expect that to change.

The doctor requested a set of routine tests for both of us; the excellent Portuguese health service has a series of protocols that come into force when we reach certain milestones – based on age, certain symptoms (such as high blood pressure) and so on.  That reassured us that there was nothing specific to worry about and we proceeded to visit different clinics to have the tests carried out.  Even when the doctor asked Tina to go for an Echo-Sound on her left breast, I didn’t really think very much was amiss.  I think I was confident that our general good health would continue forever.  How wrong can you be?

When the second test came back positive, we decided immediately to tell the church.  This was for two reasons – first because we wanted to get them praying and secondly because I believe in facing life’s major problems head-on.