Day to Breathe

Today is my day to get the little things done so I don’t have to think about them while going through the surgery.  I canceled an appointment the day after the surgery as I’m pretty sure I won’t feel up to going to another doctor that day.  I am going through some things here at the RV to take to storage and get them out of the way.  I’m doing a lot of nothing as well. 

Public service announcement part of the entry:

I seem to always have lumps in my breast, the right one.  It was always a cyst, a liquid filled bump I could feel.  When I was in my 40’s I had a doctor that insisted on a second mammogram when the first would find the lump, then the ultrasound that confirmed it as ‘just’ a cyst.  Then she would make me go have it drained.  Twice.  Even the doctor who drained it with a needle and syringe would be asking why I was there, as the cyst was not big deal. After doing that twice I never felt the cysts again.  I got lazy about breast exams, figuring that it was just a cyst if I had felt something.

The lump that is cancerous I cannot feel.  Even though I know it is there, and it is .9x.9x.6 cm, I cannot feel it.

The radiologist last year said she saw ‘calcifications’.  I figured, hey, I’m getting older, no surprise there would be something called calcifications in my breast.  I put off getting the second mammogram until this year.  When I told my Internist this year about what was found last year, he ordered a 3D mammogram.  Once the lump in the right breast was discovered to be cancer, I brushed off the calcifications in the other breast as trivial.  A radiologist looking at my scans from last year did not.

Turns out that calcifications are debris that is thrown off when ‘something’ is going on.  I have not had ‘something’ defined for me yet.  The biopsy yesterday was to determine what that something is.  I was put into a type of mammogram x-ray machine with a window in the plastic for them to access the area of interest.  It was automated far more than the other ultrasound guided biopsy.  It seemed more extensive.  I did not have any real pain with either biopsy, nor has there been any lingering pain afterwards.  I was given small ice packs to use on the area, and that was all that seemed to be needed.  No pain after the numbing used during the biopsies wore off.  Sort of like getting dental work, a bit of pain while the numbing stuff goes in, then nothing.

I get the results of the second biopsy tomorrow.  I believe the only difference in the Monday surgery a finding of cancer there would be is that I’d have ‘lumpectomy’ on both breasts.  That is as much as I know now.

Public service section off.