I'd given myself breast exams in the past, wondering what a lump would feel like, and now I knew. Panic welled inside of me and adrenaline started pumping at a fast pace, jolting me awake. I reached for my phone, knowing that there was no way that the doctor's office would be open that early, but calling anyway. I left a message and continued to get ready for work, waiting for them to call me back.
At 9:00am, they did.
Most of the day was spent working at a furious pace, trying hard to ignore the pain in my upper breast and what it might mean. Fears of needing a biopsy went through my head and I told my boss that I may not be back that day if things went badly. At 1pm, I went to the appointment where the Nurse Practitioner gave me the exam, told me that it was more than likely a cyst and not to worry since the bad stuff never hurt. She gave me a paper to call the hospital and schedule a precautionary mammogram with an ultrasound to follow and I left, much relieved.
Since I was days away from starting my period, and my breasts were sore, she had stated that I could wait a week to go in, but I kept forgetting to call. For two weeks, I let it go, until Mike started threatening to evict me unless I went in. So, I called and scheduled the appointment for Friday, January 30th.
Over the years, I'd heard many, many horror stories about getting a mammogram, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I went in. My mind, however, was working overtime. From what I'd heard, the procedure had to do with taking your breasts and smashing them against your chest as painfully as possible-- didn't sound fun.I checked into radiology and was taken back into a separated section of the department, away from the hustle and bustle of broken legs and other diagnostics, where a technician asked me questions about my date of birth, whether I'd ever been pregnant, and what year the live birth took place. I was then told to take off my top and get dressed in the piece of fabric she handed me, then come into the room across the hall. After unfolding it, and turning it around a few times, I realized that it was a cape.
The room was huge in perspective to the amount of stuff in it. The wall to the right of the door was devoid of anything, there was a singular chair to my left, the mammogram machine angled in the corner, and the prerequisite cabinets with sink along the far wall. The mammogram machine was nothing like I imagined, and nothing like I'd ever seen before. There was a flat panel that looked metal with a baking dish looking thing right above that. I stared at it wondering where, exactly, my breasts were going to go.
To clear up rumors, they don't pancake your breasts against your chest to do a mammogram. In actuality, they pancake the breast itself. The mammographer pulls all the flesh of your breast and sets it on the metal plate and then brings the plastic baking dish thing down to squish it. It was an interesting experience, but not painful, and the only discomfort happened when she had to manually tighten down the top plate-- but that was something I brought on myself by telling her to stop only when I couldn't stand the pressure anymore. Since a better image is going to appear the more flush the flesh is, I let it get a little tighter than... well, than I normally would, if say, it were my husband doing the... squeezing.
I also came to realize that there might be distinct benefits in being large chested with saggy boobs.
It took about 15-20 minutes for all the x-rays to be done, most of that manipulating flesh, and then I was sent back to wait while the mammographer checked with the radiologist to make sure all the pictures where as they should be. They weren't, and I was taken back in for three more. One, to get a better view of the lump, and two more because they thought they spotted another one deeper in.
Once that was done, another nurse appeared to take me to the ultrasound room for a sonogram of my breast. Having had many, many ultrasounds during my pregnancy, I was comfortable with the procedure. I knew that the ultrasound was to follow-up and make sure that the lump was a cyst and I started intently on the screen. You could see the lump very clearly as a dark void on the screen. This procedure only took about 10 minutes and then the technician went to take the results to the radiologist before letting me get dressed.
The room was cold. I'd been shivering for days from the cold weather and wanted to be warm. That was all I was thinking about as I waited-- how to get warm when one is only wearing jeans and a washcloth-- when the door opened and the radiologist walked in. Since the technician had told me that the radiologist would be able to tell me something, if he could make a determination, that day, I was expecting him. Especially since it was just a cyst. Simple, we checked, you're done.
He was cute. Young. Big brown eyes with laugh lines around the corners. He wore glasses and a nice smile, khakis and a button up shirt with a lab coat over the top. As always happens, my brain went into "cute guy alert" despite the fact that my main fashion accessory as a top was a white terry cloth washcloth. So, when he told me that it wasn't a cyst, but a solid mass of something instead, it didn't really phase me.
He started talking about a biopsy and not taking any blood thinning medications for three days before the procedure. He went through the process and noted that I also couldn't take a drug that sounded something like cardamon. I noted that the word sounded like a spice and how was I going to resist chili, which made him laugh- he had a nice gusty laugh- like he wasn't sure I was joking about the cumin. I was, and thought it lovely that he had a sense of humor. He talked to me about calling my doctor and letting her know what was going on, so that she could talk to me about stopping medications, and then left me to get dressed.
I was taken to the schedulers so that they could get me in for the biopsy as soon as possible, which was determined to be Wednesday. While I was talking to the scheduler, my phone rang. I ignored it thinking it was Mike and made a mental note to berate him for pestering me for a status update. There were things to talk about when it came to scheduling, like that they put a "marker" into the breast to mark the spot if future tests were needed, and my allergies to metal and latex. Whether I should go ahead and have my labs taken then, in order to save time prior to the biopsy. It was decided to go ahead with the labs and I was sent back to the waiting room, with the prerequisite, "Don't worry, they are usually nothing." Up until then, it still hadn't phased me that I SHOULD be worried, or what it meant if it wasn't "nothing". But now, it started sinking in.
While in the waiting room, I picked up my phone and called my voice mail, surprised that my doctor and not Mike had been the phone call. My doctor. A phone call. I'd only just left the radiologist five minutes before she called. I sat there, staring, wondering if it was really that urgent that I call her back, wondering what she would say. The numbing effect of the last few minutes started wearing off and I started thinking about the biopsy procedure-- or more, the four needles needed to perform it.
Picking up the phone, I called the doctor's answering service and explained that Nan (my dr.) had asked me to have her paged. One minute later, the phone was ringing.
"How are you doing, Sweetie?" She asked.
"I'm kinda freaking out right now." I answered.
"You're going to need a biopsy."
"I know. I want to knock myself out for this." Needle phobe that I am, there was no way I would survive a biopsy needle. I'd be headed for padded-cell-olvaynia.
"Okay, what would you like." She asked. There was part of me that was disconnected enough from the moment to recognize the humor in a doctor offering whatever kind of drug you wanted to knock yourself out with, but I answered that I already had Ativan and Xanax and then rambled on a bit about those, surprised at how unclear I was thinking.
"Well, you can take 1 mg of either the Ativan or the Xanax, but you can't take them together-- because you'd be drooling and then you'd be dead and we'd find out it was nothing and that wouldn't be good!"
Great Doctors can always make you laugh.
"I'm going to want you to schedule the biopsy for Tuesday, so you need to stop taking the aspirin today, okay?" She sounded concerned. Things were really starting to sink in and I was struggling to hold back tears.
"We went ahead and scheduled it for Wednesday. They had me do that. I'm waiting for labs now."
We had a short discussion about lab work and who had ordered it and I explained that I didn't know if it was actually ordered, since it was more of a suggestion from the scheduling person who had gone to get the Radiologist to sign the order. She noted that I'd also need labs taken prior to the exam to see if there were any changes in some level that started with a T and then let me know if I needed anything that I could have her paged at the same number all weekend. I thanked her and we hung up.
When I got off the phone, I stood staring at a bookshelf with games and other things meant to ease the pain of waiting. None of the titles of the books sank in. The games, just a blur of color and letter. A minute later, a young man dressed in blue hospital scrubs came out to talk to me. His hand on my shoulder, he let me know that I didn't need to wait for labs after all and that I could go home. He had to repeat it twice before it sunk in.
On my way out of the hospital, tears flooding my eyes held back only by force of will at the thought of having to tell my husband, two things hit me...
The word biopsy is a whole lot scarier when said after the mammogram and ultrasound; and,
good-looking guys are not supposed to call over-weight, old women, "Hon'"
The world looked surreal.
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