A Story of a Lump Named Fred

One day a young woman named Elizabeth was looking in the mirror, trying to figure out why one of her necklaces did not look right. It looked like it was crooked around her neck. And then the young woman noticed that it was not the necklace that was crooked, it was, in fact, her neck. She poked and prodded until she noticed that there was a lump in her neck. Now, the girl was not an alarmist and has always had pretty decent health. (With the aside of a lacerated liver, some stitches..you know, nothing big) Her clutzy tendencies aside she was never really in poor health.
This is not to say that she ignored said lump. She just didn’t focus on it. She questioned her mother once, she tested her sisters’ necks to see if they had a similar lump. On one particular occasion she even made them feel her neck to see what they thought it was. The consensus came back that it was probably just a swollen gland. Problem solved.
Two months later the young woman was going to the doctor to get her cholesterol checked because she had lost quite a bit of weight and wanted to have a check up. While there, she mentioned the lump to her doctor. In complete contrast to what she was expecting him to do and say, he told her that it was a lump, he was sending her to an ENT to have him check it out, and he was ordering an ultrasound to find out if it was a solid mass or a cyst.
Two weeks, four doctors, an ultrasound, a needle biopsy, two CT scans, a PET scan, a bone marrow biopsy and a couple of diagnosis’ later, the lump is cancer and now it needs a name. Why does the lump need a name? Well, now that the young woman knows that a part of her body is trying to kill her, she feels easier killing it off by giving it a personality that she could get angry with. This may not make sense to everyone, but the idea that there was a mass of her own cells trying to hurt her made her a little nervous. By naming the mass and giving it a personality she is able to separate it from the rest of her body. ( I know. Deep thoughts. Don’t worry. This won’t happen very often)
So, why Fred? Well, several years ago she made up a story for her nephews. The story was called “Fred the Goblin”. In this story, her nephews played the protagonists, and by the end of the story they had kicked Fred’s butt. In following their examples, if her nephews could kick Fred’s butt, then so could she. No evil or sinister name for her lump. Her lump was going to be a wuss that would be easily defeated.
Then came the fight. Although at the start it looked like Fred would be a strong opponent, the tide soon turned and …but that’s a story for another day.


Posting #1 “Me First, Me First!”
The advantage to proof-reading Elizabeth’s post before she posts, is that we get to go nah, nah, nah-nah, nah, nah, to Janette.

Love, Carol and Katrina :)

PS Janette, we're timing you...