June 27, 2014

My sons 3rd birthday.  We were planning on attending a birthday party at the beach this day and then heading up to Plymouth camping with friends.  However, I had seen my family Doctor earlier in the week to discuss a lump I had found and other issues I was having with my left breast.  He had told me he thought I had a huge hematoma going on and that we should explore things more.  So I had scheduled to have an ultra sound and mammogram done on Friday, June 27.  Thinking nothing of it I was still planning on fitting my appointment in at 9:15, hitting the beach at 10:00, then heading up for camping around 2.

So I headed to my appointment at the clinic right where we live and they put me in a comfy white robe and had soft music playing.  You'd think I was heading in for a massage, not for mammogram where they're going to smash my boob in a machine.  The mammogram wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  The nurse pointed out that I had some calcifications in my left breast and my right breast was clear.  She also said that lots of women have them, she did and hers are benign. After the mammogram the nurse brought me back into the room and said she would be right back.  Keep in mind I thought I was going to be in and out.  I had things to do and places to be.  The nurse comes back after about 15 minutes or so and said the Dr. wants her to take a couple more shots on my upper left breast area.  So back in the mammogram machine we go for more squeezing and x-rays.  Finally, nurse #1 is done and back into the waiting room I go listening to that soft, soothing music again.  Nurse #2 comes shortly and now were heading in for the ultra sound.  This was definitely much easier and reminded me of the ultra sounds from having my kiddos, except of course a completely different area showing up on the small TV screen.  I was trying to make out what was showing up, but of course all I could see was dark spots and cloudy grey areas, so it all looked terrible to me.  After a good half hour of being a bit uncomfortable back into the the original room I went.

Waiting to finally meet the Dr. so he could tell me some news about what was going on.  I could tell from his face that things didn't look good.  He told me that I needed to get a biopsy done to see about the calcifications that showed up, and a couple other areas on the mammogram and ultra sound they were concerned about.  He said there was an opening today at the hospital if I was able to go.  I said I needed to try and get a hold of my husband and also see if my in-laws could watch my kids longer.  I guess I wasn't making it to the beach.

Well, I could barely get words out of my mouth when I talked to Andy.  He told me that everything was going to be OK and he would meet me at the hospital.  When I got to the hospital the nurse was waiting for me already to get everything started and Andy still was going to be 30 minutes away.  They said when he got there they'd let me know and bring him back.  So of course I got to put on another comfy, white robe, listen to some more soft music, but NO massage!

The nurse took me back to the room and asked all of her questions she needed.  Andy got there and came down as the Dr. talked with the two of us about what he was going to do.  He did tell us to prepare ourselves because he was pretty certain that this was cancer.

The biopsy wasn't to bad.  It was all done with an ultra sound, so I could watch they whole thing as they were doing it.  They had taken 6 samples from my lump area and then took 4 samples from the lymph node that was enlarged.  I was pretty sore and started to have a lot of pain.  They told me to take some Tylenol, ice the area, not to lift anything more than a gallon of milk, and try not to think about this to much.  Of course this all had to happen on a Friday, so I had to wait all weekend to get the results.

Since there was not much else to do, but shed a few tears we decided to still head up camping.  We figured this would help keep things off our minds versus just sitting at home staring at each other and waiting.