The Day of Discovery

I'll never forget how one thing lead to another all the way to the diagnosis. First of all, I had gone to my gynecologist about 2 years ago for a regular check-up and at that time she told me to go ahead and get a mammogram. Well, I thought I had already had my yearly one not too long ago, so put off having another. It actually ended up being longer than I thought. I went a whole year and back to the gynecologist again for another check up last December 2011. She told me once again to go get a mammogram done. I planned to and of course put it off until May of 2012. I'd had mammograms since age 35 on a a regular basis, and out of all of those, only one had ever come back abnormal. I had a benign lump removed about 11 years ago. Well, I received a call from the nurse the next day after having the mammogram and she said I needed to come back in and have another one done and also an ultrasound because they had found a "mass" in the mammogram I had done. A mass mind you, not a word that sounds exactly friendly. I was immediately worried and went in for the further testing. Sure enough, the "mass" was solid inside, which meant a biopsy would have to be done to make sure of exactly what it was. I ended up going to Dr.Lynn Canavan, the Doctor my gynecologist had highly recommended. She's a Breast Surgeon and one of the best in the area. She assured me it could just as easily be a fibroadenoma as it could a cancer. The biopsy was done in her office very quickly. I had to wait almost a week to hear the results, so that wasn't fun worrying that whole time.

My sister went with me for my appointment to hear the results. It was so nice having her there. Dr. Canavan walked in, sat down, and said they did find cancer in the lump. Immediately tears came to my eyes and I was beside myself. Dr. Canavan reassured me over and over that this one does not look bad, it's very small, and will be easily taken care of. Even so, anything that has to do with the C word is scary! After talking a bit, she brought in all kinds of information for me in a black bag with a pink ribbon. She told me mine looked like a lumpectomy would be fine, then just follow up with some radiation and that should be it. The only thing that would change this would be if anything was found in the lymph nodes under the arms after surgery or if I tested positive for the Brac Analysis, a genetic test. If people do, they then usually require a masectomy and possibly ovarian removal. They did take a blood test while I was there and found out my cancer was Triple Negative. This is more rare than a regular cancer. It means there are no estrogen, progesterone, or HER2 receptors in the cancer. Typically, most cancers can be treated with these hormones to shrink or kill cancer cells. Well, when you have none of these in the your particular cancer mass, it means other types of medicine have to be used to treat the cancer. This kind also tends to be a little more aggressive with a higher chance of recurrence. I found this out by reading more details about it. Didn't help my worries much!