Back again -- this time awaiting a biopsy in right breast.

Anonymous

Back again -- this time awaiting a biopsy in right breast.

smartbuffy

My big day is January 4, 2016. This time, the breast center discovered a Parallel, oval, circumscribed, slightly hypoechoic, 4mmX2mmX4mm mass. At first, they wanted me to come back for another look-see in 6 months, but I said (once again) I want closure. I don't want to keep coming back for more look-sees. My biggest fear is that since this is a core needle biopsy, (I don't know anyone who ever had a successful needle biopsy -- my mother (neck) didn't; my dog didn't; my husband (prostate) didn't.) that they will say, they couldn't tell anything and so I will just have to come back in six months for another look-see.

I am unable to sleep, I keep arm-wrestling with them as I try to nod off rehearsing telling them that I don't think anyone should be sent home with possibly a cancer growing in his or her breast. If it is bad, or if they don't know -- get it out of me. If it isn't, let me go for a year. Make up your mind.

Don't blow me off like this. I don't want to keep staring down cancer ....I wish I were Angelina Jolie and could get both of them removed. I am 68 and don't need them and they are like two bombs ticking away on my chest, causing me problem after problem.

My husband had leukemia, then acquired myelodisplastic Syndrome. He had no life after diagnosis. He was shuffled from doctor to doctor and all his time was taken up adhering to their schedules.

I am so angry that they first told me to come back in 6 as if I am not anxious enough about even my screening mammos, much less diagnostic ones and then ultrasounds and now a biopsy!

Grandmother had breast cancer. I have her 1953 records. My mother did not, but at my age started to have little cysts and an adenoma.

Smartbuffy

ChiSandy

Don’t get ahead of yourself: 80% of biopsies result in a finding of benign. I definitely disagree that there’s no such thing as a “successful needle biopsy.” True, fine-needle aspiration biopsies have a high “miss” rate, but core-needle is the gold standard--why cut out a bigger chunk of your breast just to determine if you have cancer? Most of us here were diagnosed via core-needle biopsy; only the malignant results require further excision--and the surgical path reports usually confirm those initial ones from the biopsy. (A core-needle biopsy can tell you more than just benign vs. malignant: it can reveal hormone receptor and HER2 status, grade and type--e.g., invasive vs. in situ, ductal vs. lobular, etc. You need the surgical path report to “stage” the cancer--based on size & lymph node involvement--and margins; it also yields more tissue for precise genetic assay of the tumor to determine which treatments are necessary or at least beneficial).

Unless you fairly often get painful or tender lumps, or are a BRCA-mutation carrier, there is absolutely no valid reason (IMHO) for removing non-cancerous breasts. It’s not a simple preventive measure--mastectomy is a long surgery, with reconstruction taking even longer (usually with repeat surgeries). Surgery always carries risks from infection and anesthesia...and with mastectomy, pain and drain management. Don’t put yourself through more tsuris than is necessary. (And women who’ve had mastectomy can still get a recurrence in the chest wall.

smartbuffy

Hi and thanks.

I absolutely cannot go through another day waiting to see if I get to keep my beautiful hair. (It isn't beautiful!!! I only think it is beautiful because I have had it since birth.And while no one would ever say I was arrogant.....I liked me. The hair came from my mother and grandmother.) The hospital told me 90% were benign!!! (-: LOL!!!

Chances just went up. Oh, well. This is going to turn out bad. All that day they said, "We need to take a picture again....this will clear it up. It didn't. Then, "the u/s will clear things up. I thought, "Good. I will be out of here in 15 minutes...on my way home to my dog." Then, Come back in 6 and we'll take another peek-a-boo-boo." I said, "no, no no. Closure." Hence, the biopsy. It is going to be bad. Now they tell me that after the biopsy, I might becoming back in six months for another peek-a-boo-boo anyway.

Time to cancel.

You are a musician. I write. Both creative. I am 68, write flash fiction. Got a late start because I had to earn my pension. It is hard to create with boobie problems. Always lookin' over my shoulder. Same road as Joe went down. The doc shuffle. Go here, go there. Do this. DO that. Life not my own. March on.

Social worker called the day after and asked me how I felt about having a biopsy! I told her it was something I always wanted to do. A journey!! Looking forward to it. Then, I got real and I asked her, "How do you think I feel? Then, I asked her if she ever had one. She said she didn't reveal information about herself to her "clients." I told her I didn't hire her, so wasn't her client, but said that I got it now -- I tell her the deep dark secrets of my mind while she sits there and gets to judge my mental condition. So I said, "We're finished here, Liz."

I was really snarky. Next day I called her back and apologized. What if Liz was half over the edge and I pushed her the rest of the way? So I said have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but don't call again. Don't think of me as a client. Just don't call. OK, Liz?

This will not end well.

I am filled with anxiety, can't sleep. I am probably not what you expected. I am not a docile cancer patient. I will be the one no one wants because I am so angry. Not going to keep going back and staring down cancer every six months, while they d*ck around and take more peek-a-boo-boos.

Wow. Are we pi$$ed or what?

Arghhh. Sorry. Just a little crazy here, while I mark off days on the calendar. I have half of the required material needed for a chapbook. It is hard enough to carve time out to write while I take care of my everyday business, much less take care of boobies and shuffle from doc to doc and CT scan to PET scan and then chemo! Sumer is when all the writing conferences are held. I won't feel free to sign up because I might get a bad-boobie surprise. And have to cancel. And this will be forever. Due to medicare restrictions, once they start taking mammos in the summer, I will be forever forced to have them in the summer. Same month every year. Per medicare. Goodbye conferences in the summer. Goodbye Cape Cod. U of W. U of MN. Kentucky Women's. I am just now able to start going to them.....I have material. I have a plan. Had a plan. A chapbook. But now boobie problems taking front stage. Why sign up if you have to have peek-a-boo-boos!! Who know what disease they will find in my breast? Take it out. Take it out.

Arghhh again. Sorry. So sorry. On the treadmill. I am doing abut 5 hours these days. Just because. Sorry.

JJOntario

I had an US the week before Christmas...I had to insist on it because the bad boob was burning and I had not been checked since my initial lx (I did have a mammo...but not an US). Long story short...I'm going for a stereotactic biopsy on Jan 13th because we booked a trip to Costa Rica for the holidays. Now I'm sitting in paradise..with my head drifting into cancerland...again. I have a MRI scheduled for Jan 14. DH is so not supportive...it's been over a year of this. I was hoping this trip would help us, clear our heads, let us have FUN!!! I am just at a loss. It's so hard to move forward when life keeps yanking me back.

smartbuffy

Hi JJ.

That was always my biggest fear. I am so sorry. The trip of a lifetime and you have that MRI to look forward to when you home home. (sarc. you know it is sarc.)

Cancerland. Wow.

I had the diagnostic mammo and u/s last Monday. The only good thing that happened before Christmas was that Buffy (the beautiful Collie in the picture with me) was pronounced OK. For awhile, I thought we would just curl up and die together. I wondered if anyone in the neighborhood would wonder why they hadn't seen us walking next Spring. We have been a fixture since moving here since I downsized and sold the house we shared right after he died. He is all I have left from my family with Joe, who died late 2011. He is a comfort.

What is DH?

Still angry, but when I think of Buffy I soften. A little. But still angry for all of us.