Biopsy

 February 11, 2025

After I got home from the ultrasound, I pulled up my chart online and read Dr Hammond's report. Having information online and ready at the touch of a button is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it puts information into our hands too soon.. information that we can't do anything about, rather than allowing us to enjoy blissful ignorance for a bit longer. 

I got through all the technical jargon, then read the line: BI-RADS-5: These findings are highly suggestive for malignancy. That took a minute to process. I understood the highly suggestive for malignancy part. I had to look up what BI-RADS-5 meant. BI-RADS (Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System) 5 is a classification used in breast imaging to indicate findings that are highly suspicious for malignancy. The levels go from 1 to 6. If you're a level six that means you've received a diagnosis. I was just a step below that. At that point I started to get nervous. That's when I begun to think that this was probably more than just a benign mass of dense breast tissue. Could it actually be cancer? It sure seemed like it.. What would that mean? Why? How? All the thoughts swarmed inside my head. I knew I didn't want to wait a whole week for the biopsy to confirm what the ultrasound tech and radiologist already highly suspected. 

I called back first thing the next morning to try and schedule the biopsy sooner, but there was no available time. I would just have to sweat it out for a week. I tried to go about my business as usual, tried to occupy myself with my routine. I was in such a good place in my life at that time. I'd worked really hard to lose close to 40 lb, and to replace it with muscle by going to the gym regularly and staying active playing pickleball. I have developed such an amazing network of friends through pickleball! It feels great to get out and play and get exercise, and it makes it all the more amazing to make connections with the people I play with. So for the time being, I chose to focus on that. Not on the unknown no matter how bleak it looked.

February 11, 2025

A week past, which literally felt like months. But it was finally time for the biopsy. Jim came with me. Although they had explained to me what would be happening, it ended up being a little more traumatic than I anticipated. They used a local anesthetic to numb me. Then they showed me the little handheld tool that they would be using to perform the biopsy. It looked like a small device that fit in his hand, but then he pressed a little trigger button and it sounded like a staple gun. And that's literally how it felt when he performed the biopsy. A little bit of notice would have been nice, instead he lined the machine up on my breast and just pulled the trigger, and I felt a jarring thud as if he had just used a nail gun on me. Fortunately I was numb, but it still caused me to jump each of the six times he performed it. Jim was fascinated as he was allowed to watch, somewhat reluctantly by those in the room but since medical is his background And he deals with this type of thing, he was just fine. Apparently they have issues with observers who faint at the side of blood but that's not my Jim 😉

After the biopsy, they made me go back to mammography again, because they had placed two small clips in my breast at the site where the abnormalities were. This is standard procedure so that if they're caught in the future on mammogram, the tech will know that they have been checked out already. The lidocaine was already starting to wear off, and this was the most painful mammograms I've ever had. Feeling woozy from the pain when she scanned my right breast made me lightheaded, and I had to sit down for a bit lest I pass out. I may have shed a few tears at this point. Starting to feel tired of being poked and prodded and just wanted to put this behind me and get back to my life. Did I mention my oldest daughter is getting married at the end of April and I had a wedding to plan. And that my youngest daughter was turning 8 in April, and I also had a birthday and a baptism to plan?

I was told I would feel sore after the biopsy but as it was a same-day in and out procedure, I didn't think too much of that. Boy was I wrong. I was determined to get back to my routines though, so I put on a sports bra and took some ibuprofen the next morning and went out to play pickleball. It was painful, but actually felt better while I was moving and being active, so I tried to keep to my routine as much as I could. The times it hurt the worst is when I was sedentary and just sitting around. I bruised up pretty good and that took weeks to heal. I was pretty anxious to hear the news of what the biopsy would report.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MRI

February 27, right after Surgery consultation  Dr Tittensor ordered an MRI for me. At first I wasn't sure why that was needed, so this is what I found: MRI can provide a more detailed view of the breast tissue than mammograms or ultrasounds, allowing doctors to determine the size and location of the tumor, and if it has spread to other areas of the breast or the chest wall. It can also help determine if the cancer is in more than one quadrant of the breast or if the nipple or skin is involved. Ok. I guess that's why. They want to know if there's more there that they couldn't see. So I went for the MRI right after the appointment with Dr Tittensor. This would help to confirm whether we'd made the right call about a double mastectomy. The MRI itself was rather uncomfortable. They hooked me up to an IV because they wanted to use contrast. Then in order to get into the MRI machine, I had to lay on my stomach on a table-like device that had two square holes cut out for e...
Read more

First Surgery

 March 12 This was the day. Double mastectomy. Not one that I was looking forward to, but I felt like if I could get through this big surgery, everything else would fall into place. I'm writing this post several weeks later, so I'm having to look back and remember. I do remember feeling that this would be it. Have the surgery, move forward with reconstruction, be back to playing pickleball and going to the gym by May. You didn't quite work out that way though.  The surgery was long. I remember when I first started coming out of the anesthesia, even before I was fully awake the first thing I felt was searing pain, especially on the left side. I had been told that they were going to use a nerve block, which was helping immensely with the pain for most of the patients. Many of them come home without pain meds, just basic ibuprofen and Tylenol. Well... That was not the case for me as the nerve block did not work.  I was given lortab which usually helps me. Over the course of ...
Read more

Chemotherapy 1&2

 Sunday, May 18 I've just finished my second round of chemo. This part of my treatment is probably going to be the most difficult, even though surgery was incredibly hard. I was told that I will have 8 rounds of chemotherapy followed by 15 rounds of radiation, followed by 5 to 10 years of hormone therapy. I'm beginning to see why this is referred to as a marathon not a sprint. Sure wish it would have been a sprint in the surgeries could have been the end. Chemo Remi Aspen's wedding was on April 26th at the Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork. It was beautiful and amazing, the weather was gorgeous and she looked so pretty and happy. So many friends and family came to support us. The luncheon was at our stake Center afterwards, organized by Andrews parents. It was really nice! Then her reception was 2 days later at Highland Gardens Reception Center. It was pricey, but so beautiful! Again, so many kind friends and family came to help and support us. I couldn't have do...
Read more