Waiting is the hardest part...

tfriend

I've been on a "watch and wait" ultrasound schedule for quite some time now for several masses they "think" are cysts or fibroidadenomas. My breast tissue is extremely dense so mammograms are not effective. About 8 months ago, I also had them check out a new mass forming behind my right nipple. It felt different than the others, attached to the breast tissue (can't feel the edges), has a ridge to it and is super hard. It started small but at my follow up ultrasound 6 months later it measured 2.3 c.m. My right breast is also now noticeable bigger (it used to be my small side).

They recommended a core biopsy due to it's growth. It took 4 tries to penetrate the mass, 3 failed attempts with a manual biopsy gun until they moved onto vacuum assisted. The results came back as focal atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) with micro-calcifications and other benign findings. I was told I landed in the 10% of having an ADH diagnosis - lucky me.

Next week they plan to remove the entire mass by excisional biopsy for further testing. They say chances of it being cancer are low, but they also told me that about ADH and here we are.... and frankly I stopped believing statistics when my neice died of cancer at 28.

What is concerning me most tonight are a few things that may or may not be related. Back in August, I started to feel numbness in parts of my right thumb and forefinger. I thought it was due to an existing slipped disc in my neck but no test results support this, or anything else, so it's still an ongoing mystery.

I have also been a migraine sufferer for around three years. I thought being tired often, having back pain and hot flashes/flushing were just part of this condition but it's been really bad in recent months.

Could these things be cancer lurking in my body? This is unfortunately where my mind keeps going - like I said waiting is the hardest part.

If you have an experience to share in any of these areas I'd love to hear from you.

Hugs,

Tiffany

MelissaDallas

Tiffany, try not to get too far ahead of yourself. ADH on initial biopsy is only found to have DCIS or invasive cancer in the area on excision about 20% of the time. Additionally, it is highly unlikely that if there is anything else going on that it would be anything but early stage. Even if you had advanced cancer it is really unlikely that hand and finger symptoms or migraine symptoms would be in any way related. Most women diagnosed with breast cancer had no symptoms at all prior to diagnosis

tfriend

MelissaDallas, thank you for the response. My body is so sensitive to any type of changes, I think my hormones (and stress) may be to blame for the increased migraine symptoms but the hand numbness issue is just plain weird. But I won’t lump them all together per your sound advice :-) —One step at a time—

If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find your LCIS?