Out my office Window

Last October (2010), the mammogram mobile was parked outside my office window.  A month earlier my doctor gently reminded me that at the ripe old age of 48, I was about due for a mammogram, it had been oh...  8 years or so since my previous one...  I blew it off, of course, but there sat that big bus, with the pink ribbon on the side, so what the heck.

I made an appointment, went in an hour later and got that out of the way.

A few weeks later, before I had the results back in fact, I felt a lump.  I have a history of fibrocystic breasts, so didn't  fret, figured it was hormones and that it would go away.

The mammogram results came back clear, no worries, so I felt pretty confident that my little wierdity would just go away.  There were a couple days right before Thanksgiving where it hurt like crazy, but I took a couple Aleve, and the pain went away, so I kept right on figuring that it was hormonal and would just resolve itself.

Then.  The first week in January, i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I got out of the shower and could see the lump.

I went into freak out mode and called my Doctor.  He ordered a mammogram from the imaging center near where I work.  I called them, they couldn't get me in right away, but since I was freaking out, they called their sister office in Anchorage (about 45 miles away), for later that afternoon.  This was January 5, 2011.

Before I had time to tell my secretary that I would be out for the afternoon, Susan (a wonderfully calming woman) from the imaging center called back and said that they would fit me in if I could be there in 30 minutes.  Off I went.

I got a mammogram, just the right breast.  Kelly, the tech came back in and said the radiologist wanted a spot mammogram, just focusing on the lump.  Then she came back and said the radiologist wanted an ultrasound, so across the hall for me.

Kristy, the ultrasonographer, who loves her job, took awesome pictures of an ugly spot, and took them into the back regions of the clinic.  After Kristie's ultrasound, the Doctor herself came in to do her own and see for herself.  Worrisome was the word she used, and scheduled me for a needle biopsy the next morning.

The biopsy was Thursday, January 6, and I was going to have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for results.

Monday afternoon, my Doctor's office called and said that he wanted to see me first thing Wednesday morning to go over the results.