From diagnosis to surgery in 5 days

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shannon56
shannon56 Member Posts: 73
edited June 2014 in IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)

I'll refer to my story as the curious case of Shannon's abdominal pain.  Yes that's the way things started on my whirlwind journey.  On March 4 of this year I had terrible pain on my right side just below the last rib.  My husband took me to the ER to see what was wrong.  After a myriad of test and some pain killers the docs decided that I did not have gall stones, or kidney stones, and my apendix was just fine.  Now here's the really strange part -- I have a third no active kidney.  I ask the PA to check it out as I had been told if it grew or started to work I'd have pain.  She said there was no 3rd kidney (which is impossible since body parts don't disappear).  So she went back and looked at the CT scan.  Well she found the kidney and then asked when I had my last mammogram.  It had been I thought about 18 months earlier (turned out to be 2 yrs - my bad) and she said that there was a mass on my left breast and I should get one done soon.  On the following Tuesday I stopped to get an order from my Primary Care.  Based on the CT scan she sent me immediately to the breast clinic at the hospital where I got an appointment for the following week.

At the breast clinic they do everything in one day, so I had a bunch of mammograms, an ultra sound, and a needle biopsy.  I had to wait until Friday, March 20 to get the results and they were positive as the doctor (surgeon) thought.  He asked me when I wanted to have a lumpechtomy and I said ASAP.  Thus on March 25 I had the tumor removed.

I saw the radition onc on April 1 (thank god he wasn't a jokester) and the med onc on April 3.  My port was put in April 6 and I had my first TCH treatment on April 10 (Good Friday).

I certainly didn't have anytime to get overly worried but I also had a calm settle over me which could only be God given.  Had I not had the abdominal pain it might have been 3 or 4 months before I would have had a mammogram.  This is why I say my BC diagnosis was by Divine Intervention.

Last week I found out I had neutropenia which was not fun since the foods I could eat had no taste at all.  Today at my blood draw everything was back to normal and I'll get treatment #2 tomorrow.

To everyone here Good Luck on your journey WE ALL will beat this.

BTW, my aunt is a 22 yr survivor Sealed

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  • idaho
    idaho Member Posts: 1,187
    edited April 2009

    Wow, You did have a whirl-wind time!  I am so glad you had peace and were able to get things done quickly so you didn't have a lot of "wait" time.  Sometimes that is the worst part of all of this.  SOunds like you are feeling better and that is great!  Hope you breeze through treatment and can get back to "normal" soon.  HOORAY for your Aunt!  Tami (is your abdominal pain gone?)

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  • shannon56
    shannon56 Member Posts: 73
    edited April 2009

    idaho - abdominal pain went away the day after I saw my colo-rectal surgeon.  Seems that sometimes scar tissue from an hysterectomy can get jarred loose during a colonoscopy, then it gets trapped between the ever winding colon which causes pain.  When it got lose the pain went away.

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  • hiker
    hiker Member Posts: 22
    edited May 2009

    Shannon- I was dx 3/20/08. One year after you. I had my surgery April 1st. My year is done with just one herception left.  I made it and you will too.  In some ways it was the longest year of my life...and in some ways it went very quickly.  Good luck !!

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