Small cluster microcalcifications

sagelady

no worries Wiggin. But thank you for clarifying. I'm still new at this. So not sure if what they found on bx is what it is. Or if they could find these other diagnosises when they did the surgery. It appears you and greenharbor had the DX of IDC on bx and the DCIS was associated with it. So I'm assuming if I had IDC it would have been seen on bx, am I correct?

Somehow, I'm calmer now having a diagnosis and a plan. Even I am surprised by that. My GYN as well as the nurse navigator seemed quite reassuring that this was early stage one and small. So an easier road to travel. Hopefully they are right. Thank ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR QUICK RESPONSES AND UNWAIVERING SUPPORT. I truly don't know how I would get through this without you. Cyber friends can be some of the best

pegasus68

No news for me yet, although I'm really hoping to hear by tomorrow. Early next week I'm out of town with one of my kids for an academic competition, and between traveling and the scheduled activities it may be difficult for me to take "the call". At any rate, I'm hopeful it's benign - I've had several past biopsies show all kinds of benign fibrocystic stuff, and the radiologist did say it's possible the microcalcs she saw could just be caused by fibrocystic changes. Unfortunately, I've also had a prior biopsy with LCIS and have a strong family history which makes me high risk so I can't completely silence the nagging worry that the odds are going to catch up with me...

Either way, I will think of you and pray for you as you move forward with your plan!

sagelady

maybe call tomorrow afternoon before they close? That way you can go out of town without the fear of the phone😊

I will pray for a big fat B9 for you tonight !

RowWellandLive

sagelady I'm sorry it wasn't the result we hoped for but you caught it small and early. You have a great support group here and you can handle this!

PurpleCat

Hi Sagelady, I'm so sorry things turned out this way, but in my experience, the part you just got through was the absolute worst phase, emotionally, of my entire journey. After my sentinel node biopsy, after getting good results but still experiencing a lot of pain, I told someone that I would far rather be experiencing that physical pain than waiting for that initial biopsy report. Waiting for test results is just torture, and there's nothing that makes it better. But if you can get through that, which you just did, you can get through the rest.

As to whether IDC would have been seen on the biopsy, I was told that 10-15% of the time the final pathology report from DCIS surgery (my initial diagnosis, although it's not in my signature) reveals IDC too. Unfortunately, I was in that small percentage, which was pretty upsetting because it meant a second surgery to get lymph nodes, then additional waiting to find out if they were clear. They also did oncotype testing on the IDC, so I had to wait for that score too. But the nodes were clear, and the score was low, and in the end I had the exact same treatment they had outlined for me after the DCIS biopsy: lumpectomy, radiation, and tamoxifen. So the only thing that really changed was that after a month of thinking I had Stage 0, which never gets chemo, I spent about two weeks bracing myself for the possibility that I would need chemo after all. By then I was so sick of the waiting game I would have happily accepted chemo if it meant just getting ON with treatment!

Hang in there, Pegasus. I'm praying it's just more of the same-old same-old for you!

pegasus68

Good news today - benign!!! It is, indeed, more of the same-old, same-old ("proliferative fibrocystic changes"). I guess there may be a small question regarding 'concordance' and location, so we'll need to wait for the radiologist's final report to get the final all-clear. (During the biopsy, they told me there were two nearby clusters and tried to set it up so they could sample both at the same time, but neither the first nor second round of core samples showed any calcs in them so that angle missed both spots. They then removed the needle and repositioned it directly on one of the clusters - but round 3 samples showed only 1 or 2 calcs so they had to take a 4th set of samples. At that point, they didn't even try to go back for the other spot - I was pretty much D-O-N-E for anyway.) But at least what they got was totally benign, and hopefully got enough that we are done with this for now! Thank you all so much for your prayers and support!

And now I get to have a fun weekend! Hope you all do the same!

PurpleCat

Yay! So very happy for you, Pegasus!!!

sagelady

yay !! Great news.... bet your grinning from ear to ear. So happy for you❣️ Enjoy your weekend !!!

GreenHarbor

Great news, Pegasus!