A supraclavicular lymph node.

In people whose breast cancer is not metastatic, you shouldn�t be able to feel any lymph nodes in their neck or on their shoulders right above their clavicles.

She had a definite mass there.

The first one I�ve discovered as an advanced practice nursing student.

My first thought was, �Hey! I found something!� As in, good for me. As in, I didn�t miss it (my greatest fear, since I�m still relatively new at regular patient care and some stuff can be easy to miss).

My second thought was, �Crap! Gotta go grab the doctor!�

Unfortunately, finding a lymph node is bad news for the patient. Good that I found it when I did. Bad that it�s there.

I hate being the person who finds the bad things.

Speaking of bad things ...

Yesterday was a bad day. I had a family member tell me that I�ve been really bitchy and moody lately.

Honestly, I didn�t see that coming. She started listing all of the things I had done over the previous weekend to earn the label. A comment here, a statement there � things that honestly I didn�t see as problematic at all. But apparently she did, and so did other family members. She told me she didn�t want me to feel bad about it, but wanted to know if something was bothering me because that�s what seemed to be the case.

�Um � no?� And then I started to cry.

I thought � I honestly thought � that I had been in a really excellent mood for most of this pregnancy. I have tried really hard to be positive and upbeat, even when I�m exhausted.

So I was floored to hear that I�ve been �labile for most of the pregnancy.�

After I got off of the phone I called Blue (crying) and asked him if I had been moody over the weekend, or bitchy. He said he couldn�t think of a single thing that would have gotten that reaction out of my family. I asked him if I had been �labile for most of the pregnancy� and he said no, that I�ve been really sweet and a delight to have around.

He threw some ideas out there about the weekend � perhaps the people that I was spending time with misinterpreted something, and then it snowballed, yada yada � family dynamics.

I don�t know.

I do know that Blue wouldn�t lie to me to protect my feelings. If he thought I had been moody (recently or ever during the pregnancy) he�d tell me, especially if I was asking for honest feedback.

I also trust my family�s judgment � because, well, you kind of have to. Plus one of them is a trained psychotherapist, so I know she doesn�t just dish out comments like that out of thin air.

So maybe I�m somewhere in the middle. Maybe I�ve been great around Blue and not so great around the rest of my family?

I don�t know.

I do know that if I�ve been bitchy it has been all about me, and not about anyone else. It�s been the absolute exhaustion that I�ve been in for the past 3 or 4 months.

I am a little miffed that no one bothered to point these things out when they were happening � apparently they all let it build up and fester until I had to be �told.�

I like to think I�m approachable. I like to think that I�m easy to talk to. And I like to think that if I�m hurting someone�s feelings (accidentally or on purpose), that they should tell me when it is happening so I can stop!

It bothered me all night long. I tried calling the other family member (three times) to clear the air � I�m a �clear the air� kind of person. But I kept only getting her voicemail. So I�m feeling like she�s avoiding me.

Man, this sucks.

So of course I had the devil of a time sleeping last night � I simply couldn�t. I tossed and turned for hours. My mind raced. My body was uncomfortable. Ugh!

I only spent a half day at work today. There weren�t enough patients scheduled for the afternoon to justify keeping me around. That was fine, because I was so exhausted I was bumping into things.

I was VERY conscious of my mood, lest I start randomly insulting people again without realizing it.

(Okay, that last sentence was kind of defensive. But really, god, I have no clue what was going on this weekend that made my family decide I was being hurtful.)

Apart from apologizing to the other family member (which I wish I could have done immediately yesterday but can only do when I can get a hold of her), I need to let it go. Because I�ve been torturing myself about it all day long.

SIGH!

The one good thing I can tell you about today is that I took an hour-long nap and I slept HARD. My body definitely made up for the fact that last night�s eight hours spent in bed were a complete waste of time. I feel alive again.

34 weeks pregnant today. That means we�ve got 6 weeks (plus or minus) to go. I�m not ready!