Being Normal. Memoirs of the First Time My Pathology Report Said Absolutely Normal

I can write this with wonderful grammar, paying close attention to everything I write down making it be a better article than it will be but this is in my memoirs and it is an important part of my memoirs.

Yesterday my husband and I travelled to Little Rock, Arkansas. I go there often due to having Cowden Syndrome. I can go into detail about what it is but if you have read any of my health related stuff you likely have a good idea. It puts me at risk of all kinds of cancers. Basically, my cells can't shut off their brakes the way a normal person's can. A gene mutation makes me short on a protein that causes cellular death so as a result I have lovely white bumps on my face that most mistake as warts, benign growths all over (brain, previously the breast, thyroid, etc). I will stop now as I am making myself sound like a mutant freak.

In my 32 years I have underwent 25 operations. Three of those operations revealed cancer. Dysgerminoma, a dysgerminoma recurrence six years later, and ductal carcinoma in situ. The other pathology reports came back "unusual but not cancer", "abnormal", pretty much everything to make me continue to feel like a mutant freak. Not once did any one of those pathology reports say the word "normal."

Well, that is until yesterday. On December 8, 2009, I had my uterus and cervix removed. Another cancer risk for a woman with Cowden Syndrome is endometrial cancer. Having already been through ovarian and breast cancer, knowing I was not going to have another child, there simply was no other option for me than to have this surgery done. The breast cancer was found in pathology so my fear was cancer would be found in pathology this time as well. The report said nothing but normal.

I don't think anyone can understand how it felt hearing that word unless they have been in this situation. How many people cry when a pathology report comes back saying everything looked unremarkable and normal? I'm sure many do but for me it meant something else because it was truly the first time part of my body would go to the hospital dumpster or wherever they put it and not to Johns Hopkins Medical Center or some other big hospital to be studied further.

So, I wanted to write in my memoirs section about the first time in 32 years and 25 operations that I received a completely normal pathology report. Laugh at me if you want, leave rude comments, I don't care. I have always wanted to be normal and this time I was. I can't be brought down from that happiness. If my scanner worked I would attach the report. I am so proud. This belongs on our refrigerator.