PAPILLOMA SURGERY TOMORROW -- FREAKING OUT

amanda1116

Well tomorrow is the day: surgery to remove my tiny papilloma and I guess its surrounding duct (I am not sure -- will ask). How did I wind up tooting my high risk horn (mother) for an MRI and having three in three years and three biopsies (all B9).  My OB/GYN has a sister with B/C went for one MRI and so freaked out she has not gone back, ditto my dermatologist and my daughter's best friend's mom is an anesthesiologist who has gone for one mammogram and never returned. All three are friends and all three imply that I am doing overkill with all this testing. I'm getting myself into the system and the system seems like a spiral in some ways and once you get in you do not get out so easily if at all. On the other hand this is what this technology is here for: to save lives. On the third hand (I obviously have three) the amount of stress I have had for the past six weeks since MRI Day has really done a number.  I have not have a decent night's sleep since all of this began, and I am now skin and bones basically.  My daughter 15 is a huge mega elite saber fencer and the whole family just spent 10 days at the US fencing summer nationals in Reno, Nevada (a place you may not wish to visit anytime soon although Lake Tahoe is nice) And I can hardly remember one thing that went on. I watched her fence very well, I hung out with our fencing friend families but I was not there.  I hate feeling like this with the cloud of tomorrow hanging over my head. Biopsy negative thank God but the BS still has to go in and dig around in there to make sure the radiologist got the whole papilloma.  And of course once you dig, you biopsy again.  This is a crazy spiral and I am just exhausted from all of it.  Stop the world, I wanna get off.  I just hope this all works out.  And guess what there is always a next time.  Yeah I am thinking of prophy mastectomy and recon but I just am not ready for that in many ways.  And that means more issues than I never even dreamed of.  I never even heard of a solitary intraductal papilloma before all of this: I was just thinking I'm sunk all the time and that benign and malignant diseases of the breast were just all horrific.  Stupid me, right?

Well wish me luck in the o.r.  Oh, man, take me away Calgon.  My internist prescribed three mild anti anxiety meds:Ativan, Klonopin and something else and all three make me so woozy that I feel like I am watching the Movie of Life instead of actually being alive and it is so creepy, so forget that.  Plus I hear Ativan is horibly addictive.  So I am on my own.  I didn't even tell my friends and fam that I am having yet another procedure cause I am so sick of everyone saying I'll be fine. If I am so fine how is it I have had two biopsies and now surgery all in six weeks? To the best of my knowledge people who are fine are usually not on this particular track?  Sorry to blabber: I am just so...upset. My breasts and their nonstop care needs are now officially scaring me into the ozone.  Thanks for listening.

Amanda 

beacon800

Hey Amanda,

 I did not know you were scheduled for surgery!  I thought  your biopsy was B9 and that was that.

Anyhow, it's ok.  It's just a papilloma.  Many times they don't even remove those.  I had mild intraducatal papillomatosis, which is a risk factor for bc (not huge though) and I was told that a single papilloma does NOT increase your risk.

Don't be afraid of surgery, it's ok.  They'll have that out in a jiffy and you'll be fine.  Local or general anesthesia for you this time? 

Take it easy and don't worry.  I totally understand the fear of the diagnostic merry-go-round.  It sucks, yes it does.  But you are ok.

amanda1116

Thanks so much for the words of encouragement.  The biopsy was benign but here I am in NYC land of the malpractice suit so you can bet they take everything out, everything around it out, and there we have it: the spiral I and others like me are in.  In all truth, the pap was so small the radiologist thinks she got all of it but isn't sure -- she's a radiologist and her job is to take enough tissue to get a good biopsy (which she did absolutely)  Now of course my breast surgeon (I have known him since I was in my 20s and had a huge fibro that he biopsied a little of so as not to disfigure and it was totally benign) takes me so seriously because I am always carrying on about bc everytime I see him (which is every six months for 20+ years)  I am a total cyberchondriac mess and seem to have this inability to cut it out.  Oddly little else medical or dental bothers me at all except THIS.  Oh well...thanks for wishes.  Also under local, my other pet peeve is general anesthesia (of course)