Pre-diagnosis Re-cap

I am actually writing this post in November 2008, but I'm re-capping the events that led up to my diagnosis:

In early September this year, Miles & I were watching TV and he wrapped his arm around my left side, and all of the sudden pulled back and said "What's this??" and poked at the place my armpit meets my left breast. I touched the area and felt a small hard lump, and my heart skipped a beat. We both tried to keep calm, and decided that it was probably nothing but figured my OB/GYN look at it anyhow. I remember this happened right before my firm's attorney retreat, because I worried about it all Friday night alone in a nice hotel room in Santa Cruz that had deer grazing outside my patio door.

On Friday, September 12th I went to see my OB/GYN and Miles came with me for support. He poked around, felt the lump, and told me that given my age it was probably a fluid-filled cyst & nothing to worry about. He recommended I get an ultrasound anyhow, just to be sure. Thank goodness I had a doctor that was not eager to just dismiss me because I was too young for breast cancer...

On Wednesday, September 17th I had my ultrasound. My parents were in town, and that was comforting. I laid on the table, the ultrasound technician lady did her thing, and I watched on the screen. I could see my lump large & clear. It was a big black oval. She moved around & took some images. Then she told me she had to talk to the doctor, and left me to wait there. Judging by the tone of her voice, I could tell something was at least a little amiss. I laid there in agony for 5 minutes wondering what I was about to hear. I came to the conclusion that black meant solid mass (not fluid like the OB/GYN thought). She finally came back with the doctor, he took a look, and finally told me he thought I had a common benign lump called a fibroadenoma. He told me I shouldn't be worried at this point -- that it was incredibly common in young women my age -- and he even wrote down "fibroadenoma" so I knew how to spell it. Then he said that in the "1 in 100... well, 1 in 1,000 chance" it was malignant, we should have a biopsy done just in case. He told me to schedule my biopsy with a nurse on my way out. I spoke to the nurse and the soonest possible biopsy appointment was not for another two weeks. That was a big bummer ... I knew I was in for an awful two weeks of worry.

The day of my biopsy finally came (Tuesday, September 30th). Miles & I showed up at 7:30 a.m. and we had to wait for the elevators to start running. I had to leave Miles in the waiting room as much as I wished he could be with me for the biopsy. The nurse laid me on the table with my left arm propped up, and then she cleaned me off and started prepping. The doc from before came in and got started. He stuck me with the lidocaine needle somewhere in my breast (I made sure not to look), and that wasn't so bad. I felt it get instantly numb. He explained that I wouldn't feel any pain from the biopsy tool, but that it made a loud clicking/shooting sound each time it took a sample, and that he'd probably have to get a few samples. I was okay with all of that. They did it in conjunction with an ultrasound (called an ultrasound-guided core biopsy) so that he could see my lump on the screen to see where the needle needed to go. He warned me he was about to take the first sample... there was a loud click, followed by excruciating, shooting pain! I also saw the whole needle thing happen in real time on the ultrasound screen! I yelped in pain, and he immediately gave me more lidocaine. The pain instantly subsided, whew!, and he got 2 more samples without any trouble. Then that was it! Doc told me that the Breast Health Center would be calling me on Friday with the results. The nurse gave me an ice pack, told me reassuringly she was sure it was a fibroadenoma, gave me a mini-bottle water and Kashi bar, and said I was the best patient of the day. (Oh, by "best" patient of the day you mean first, right?) I took the rest of the day off and iced my little wound for a few hours. There was a some soreness and bruising, but nothing outrageous. Miles and I had a nice, lazy day of TV in bed, and we did pretty good at not worrying. What was done was done, and we knew we wouldn't get the results sooner by worrying.

Friday, October 3rd came around and I was at work, wondering all day about my results. By afternoon I called the Breast Health Center and left VMs for 3 different people. Someone finally called me at 4 p.m. to say my lab results weren't back, and that I'd have to wait til Monday. Bummer. Another excruciating couple of days trying not to worry...