first tests

I give 3 vials of blood before I go to work on Monday.

Needle Count: 3

initial reaction

I tell Danielle about Lumpy and head to her birthday celebrating. We start at a sushi place. I sit on the very edge of the bench; there's too many of us and it feels good to be crushed in with amazing people. We mostly order the restaurant week special and drink way too much Saporo and sake. It's expensive and I'm having so much fun.

We go back to her house and there's more beer and more fun. I'm feeling pretty good. It's getting late (or early) and I convince a friend to come home with me so that I don't have to be alone.  It's a blissful end to a fairly rough day.

We wake up late and I avoid phone calls from family. I meet Rich and Ken at a pub for brunch. I have bloody marys and wild boar tacos and try to not think about Lumpy. Ken told Rich, but I couldn't do it. I'm exhausted. Nicole comes and we're all talking and laughing.

We leave by late afternoon and I sleep for hours. When I finally go to bed, I can't get comfortable and end up sleeping ridiculously late.

I spend Sunday sleeping and telling friends and family about Lumpy. I feel like I need to sleep a half an hour after each conversation.

diagnosis

I am waiting all morning and completely useless at work. I think that I complete a psych eval of a teenager. I'm not sure. I don't remember anything except that the surgeon calls. He tells me that they found cancer cells in the biopsy.

I have cancer.

This is whoosh. The sound leaves the room. This is stopping. He keeps talking to me on the phone. I take notes and lose them immediately. I have no idea what he said except for "cancer".

I call people, but first I cry hard. I call mom. I leave a message for Ken. I tell one person who starts talking about a double mastectomy and I want to hit her and puke at the same time. I know she's trying to be helpful, but I can't process anything.

I ask my friend and coworker to cancel my clients for the day. I can't do therapy with my brain screaming. I cry when I tell her. I tell the other therapist. I tell my boss and he says "I thought so" and I wonder what on earth he means. I tell the receptionists. I didn't want to, but it was somehow easier to tell than to keep it to myself.

I go home and sleep for hours and hours. Somewhere in there, the surgeon's office calls and schedules a million appointments with me.

waiting, part 2

Waiting is terrible torture.

I try to meet up with a friend to distract me, but it seems that everyone's busy. Finally, Chris comes over and teaches me to play a guitar chord. We play board games until I fall asleep.

Friends are the best distraction ever.

waiting

Waiting is terrible. I wonder if I should tell people about the biopsy. I wonder what to do with myself all day long. I am useless at work. Telling people about the biopsy takes so much energy. I want someone else to be in charge. I feel so sure that it is going to be bad news. Regardless, I still need surgery.

meeting the surgeon

This is going to be hard. I am at the surgeon's office with Ken. Everyone here is so focused on me and that scares me. I don't like being the center of attention, not by everyone at once.

My weight has gone up, but my clothes fit looser. How's that?

Ken's doing a good job of talking to me and distracting me from my anxiety. It's a little embarrassing answering questions over and over in front of this man who I've known for years, but am now dating. I ask him to turn around when I put on the hospital gown.

I like this doc. Dr. L. is personable and 7 foot tall. He doesn't wear a tie. He tells me about his daughter who is around my age and teaches reading to underprivileged children. He asks me about my needle point mandala.

Dr. L. examines me and introduces me to two of his interns, who also examine me. He asks if we could do the biopsy now. I agree. I don't want to have to come back. There is a part of me that feels like I betrayed all the people who wanted to be there for the biopsy, but, that's too bad now.

Ken waits in the waiting room. I walk to the operating room and the ultrasound tech puts Lumpy up on her screen. I see this ugly black hole and my breast feels so tender. I meet the pathologist and his resident; we're talking about humidity and curly hair. After a few minutes, they both examine Lumpy.

When Dr. L. starts, he tells me everything that's happening as it happens. He has a calm voice and it seems like he's narrating a somewhat boring book as he pricks me with lidocaine to numb my skin before the biopsy.
I can see the gigantic core biopsy needle in my peripheral vision. He holds it with two hands and double-checks with the nurse on how it works.

I can feel his fingers on my breast and the pressure is uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure that much pressure would hurt without Lumpy, too. I try to just breathe and not move, but it is difficult not to jump as the needle pushes into me. Somehow, everyone is talking about getting teeth pulled, which is also weird and awful conversation. I know they are trying to distract me, but maybe that's too raw. The needle makes uncomfortable crunching, clicking sounds. I wonder how much stress could be eliminated if we could block scary sounds from medical procedures. I hate this sound and the sound of dental drills.


Touch Count: 10
Needle Count: 2
The procedure doesn't exactly hurt, but it feels a little bit like a dentist suctioning my mouth, but more so. Maybe I think that because of the conversation. Finally, they finish. The nurse cleans the blood off my breast and bandages it.

Ken gives me a high five and I'm so grateful that he didn't hug me.

quizzo champs!

YAY! something to think about besides Lumpy!

nerding out

I consult with Dr. Google with my endless stream of questions.

• Fine needle aspiration biopsy?
• core needle biopsy? ultrasound-guided?
• vacuum-assisted biopsy?
• excision biopsy?
• Why are we doing what we're doing?
• How long do I have to wait for results? Who will give me results?
• How long is this procedure?
• How long till I go back to work?
• Are there side effects?
• What's the follow up?

Of course, the more I learn about the possibilities, the less I know about my specific case. I just have to meet the doctor and hope he's good at communicating and surgery. 

next step: meet the surgeon

I called another hospital and got an appointment with someone to interpret/ act upon the ultrasound for 1/31.

Immediately, Hahnemann called back and got me an appointment for 1/25. Thank you! I'll take that.

I just realized the appointment is with a surgeon. That kinda freaks me out. I call his main desk and find out the plan:

• is it a consult?
• will he examine me?
• will he do a fine needle biopsy?
• or a lumpectomy?
• will it hurt more?

These answers change my life, my experiences.  Should I invite people? Not if its a consult. But, yeah, if its a biopsy. And, definitely if it's a lumpectomy.

The folks at the main desk say that its just a consult. 

Ok, then I'll bring one friend.

ultrasound anxiety

As I walk home from the hospital, I take breaks in coffee shops and am feeling frantic. I feel like I'm running a fever.

It's getting so hard to tell people about what's going on for me. I feel like I loop them into my anxiety. I don't end up feeling much better, and they end up feeling upset. There's kind of no point to that.

Even though people know, it doesn't mean that they will help me. Even if they want to help me, it doesn't mean that they know how.

I can be brave for myself.  I can't be brave for all of them.

That night, I am as sick to my stomach as I've ever been as an adult. It lasts for 2 days. It turns out, I really was feverish. It wasn't just psychosomatic.

back to dr. b

Dr. B. said lots of things as we met in his office to interpret the ultrasound. Most of it, I instantly forgot. But he said, "category 4c", "irregular", "moderate risk", "hypo-echoic" "2.4cm x 2.4cm x 1.8cm", "dense", and "mobile". (I look up all these terms with Dr. Google later.) He said I might need an ultrasound-guided biopsy.

On the plus side, Lumpy is relatively small and has been found pretty quickly. He also said that I am following up with my medical care.

On the negative side, I don't what's happening at all. I'm asked to make an appointment, but the receptionists have me wait for one. Dr B says that it might involve general anesthesia, local anesthesia, or just be an initial consultation. I don't know how to handle this much possibility.

As I leave his office, I feel nauseous and upset. I had asked a friend to come with me, but she cancelled at the last minute. I thought that she might do that and feel frustrated that I was right. I know that I could have insited that she come, but I didn't want to do that either.

I don't know what "moderate risk" means and how it relates to "highly suspicious". It doesn't begin to make sense to me.

wisdom tooth stupidity

On Friday the 13th, I left work early to go to the dentist because of my nagging toothache from December. He took a look at it and said that I broke my wisdom tooth and also had a cavity in it as well as signs of infection around it. Gross. He suggested pulling it; I agreed.

He said that Tylenol would be sufficient for pain. It wasn't. Not even slightly.

I went out drinking with my quizzo friends. I don't remember much of that night. It was that awesome.

My parents took me home for the rest of the long weekend. Dad gave me crazy pill killers that made me sleep for 14 hours straight.

One good thing about a prominent pain is that it keeps my mind off of Lumpy existing in my left breast.

xanax

My friend Dan picked me up from the hospital, only he was running late. So I'd walked about a mile down the road toward South Philly. I was so anxious that I was hyperventilating and crying most of the way. I think he got a little scared at how upset I was in the car. I appreciated the ride home, though.

I called my doctor and demanded something for my anxiety. His nurse assured me that he'd prescribe something. When he spoke to me, he said that he thought I was overreacting, but would give me the lowest dose of xanax without a refill.

Oh good. Now I don't have to hyperventilate in public anymore.

ultrasound

Today is my ultrasound at Hahnemann Hospital.

I go into this giant waiting room and am immediately aware that I am, by far, the youngest woman in the room. Right. Most breast cancer patients are older than me.

I meet the biller and start to panic when he says that my referral had not gone through yet. He allows me to call my doctor's office and a minute later the referral is processed. (This process is so stupid and utterly maddening.)

The staff move me from room to room. Eventually, I walk into a room with 2 changing areas. I have to put the hospital gown on backward. I wait in the room and wonder what everyone else is there for.

Finally, they call me into a dark room and have me lie on my side with both of my arms above my head. It's kind of the most uncomfortable position ever. The radiologist technician jokes with me about boys as she finds Lumpy on her screen. I know it's a bad sign when she stops laughing with me. My breast is sore under the ultrasound device and I can't look at the screen. She leaves to get the radiologist doctor to interpret my ultrasound.

I start to cry and worry myself nauseous about what it could be.

The doctor comes to my table and holds my hands. He says something about it being "very suspicious" and that I shouldn't ignore it. I don't hear anything else he says.

I immediately go upstairs to my gynecologist's office to get an appointment with Dr. B. to go over these results.


touch count: 3

Learning about Lumpy

I met with Dr. B. at my gynecologist's office. I'd never met him before, but the office wanted to check out the lump as soon as they could.

I changed into the robe with the tie in the front and allowed Dr. B and his nameless intern to feel both of my breasts. It feels really awkward to have people feeling my breasts and watching my face at the same time.

Dr. B. said that it's probably nothing, but that I should get an ultrasound.

touch count: 2

last year's health

Last year, I had so much illness, it was kind of ridiculous.
I started January 2011 with 2 root canals. At the end of the month, I slipped on ice and bruised the bones in my right knee. It took from end of January to May for my knee to stop hurting all of the time and to start moving well.

In June, I was in a car accident and hit my head into the windshield, sustaining a pretty bad concussion. It took me most of the summer before I could read again. I pretty much recovered in October or November.

In August, during a routine annual gynecological exam, my doctor decided to biopsy 4 "suspicious" areas of my cervix. That hurt way more than they prepared me for.

In December, I had a toothache. Also I started to notice a sore spot in my left breast. I figured it was my new bra. I didn't say anything to my family when I went home for Christmas. I just made an appointment with my gynecologist for the following week.