Where to start? Cancer itself, the thoughts, the feelings? The impact of my already fragile mental health? So many thoughts going around and around its totally overwhelming, even as I type I'm tearful! I'm no writer but I think getting some of this down may help me and may help someone else!
Probably best to start at the beginning:
October last year I went to the doctor with a lump in my armpit, she thought it was most likely normal but referred me anyway. Having not long turned 50 I had been invited for first mammogram but not yet organised. I obviously wasn't overly worried, fit and healthy and hadn't found a lump in my breast.
A referral was received to go to the Breast Care Unit at the Hospital to meet a consultant, have an ultrasound and mammogram. Consultant examined, said he thought may be something, radiologist said within normal measurements for a normal lymph node and felt it was fine and to leave it alone! Mammogram came back clear. Consultant still wasn't completely satisfied! So I left have mixed feelings. Consultant arranged a phone consultation for beginning December where I could say whether it had changed in my opinion! Nope I said feels same as it has done for months. He said he'd prefer me to come back for another ultrasound and would arrange an appointment.
Eventually in the New Year 2023 (after a shitty Christmas/New Year with Covid) I get a date. Monday 6th February. Once again not overly worried but now thinking they should probably take a biopsy, surely?! Wednesday before appointment I stretch in bed as I wake up to reach up and do one of the million inspections on my 'normal' lymph node and stop dead with fear. I can feel a lump under my breast, hard and a little misshapen. I run downstairs to get hubby to feel and yes he can feel it too, its definitely there.
Panic now takes over. I make phone calls to hospital to make them aware of lump and ask if it could be seen at the same time. They couldn't promise as only the armpit ultrasound booked in, but would try.
So I calm down a little bit, and just get on with rest of week, very aware in this new development. Monday comes around, we're early to appointment. I hadn't thought anything much would happen so went in by myself. Not realising this would be the first day that my world would come crashing down. Ultrasound of lymph node done, (still proclaiming its looking normal!) they start to do ultrasound of breast lump and suddenly it gets more serious. Sent next door for a mammogram and back in for biopsy of the breast lump. Then to see consultant. Sisse Olsen. Mammogram still showing nothing (I'll google why that is later!) but consultant 99% sure this is a cancerous tumour. Sent me for blood test and said she would be referring me for an MRI. I'm in the right place, I'm in the right place, I'm in the right place. But with depression and anxiety it doesn't take much for the little voices to start to win in the who takes control of the thoughts and feelings!!
Fast forward (although when you're living this, time freezes) to the following Wednesday for the MRI. A client of mine talked me through her experience of having this procedure done, although her experience was not great at least I had an idea what to expect! I also googled the procedure to see how it works. I was mostly keeping my mind in check while waiting for this appointment, but once I got there I was shaking a little. For those who have never had an MRI for a breast screening, you go into the building where this procedure takes place, you answer a lot of questions (most of which seem irrelevant, but they have to go through the tick list!) then change into a very sexy gown! You are then taken into the room with the machine, which is like a giant tube. A canula is inserted into your arm (in the crease of your elbow), you are laid face down and your boobs are positioned through two holes. All dignity out the window (although having had 3 children that went years ago). The holes are huge and certainly made me feel inadequate, so I find myself asking the operators to make sure I'm in enough (worried they wouldn't get a good picture otherwise!). They put in ear plugs and put headphones on you so you can apparently hear the radio while the machine does its job!
The table moves you into the tube backwards, so I'm face down and going backwards, just all very weird! Then the machine starts up. It's very noisy and any hope of hearing a bloody radio station was pointless really. They do scans without contrast, then they inject the dye in through the canula in your arm and take more scans. You just have to lie still. The actual scan took about half an hour, it wasn't uncomfortable or scary in the end. But just make sure you get a blanket over you to keep you cosy while you're lying there. Relief that one more thing out the way and back to what my Aunt (who had breast cancer 25 years ago) calls the HURRY UP AND WAIT!
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