Do you sometimes wonder when the other shoe will drop?

I, for one, waited for the other shoe for about 3 years.  I had a scare about 1.5 years out, in the "good" boob.  I actually agreed to wait 6 mos. and reshoot the mammogram to see if there were any changes worth doing a biopsy on.  I had been advised, rather casually, by the radiologist, that I wasn't to worry, the microcals that had popped up since the previous mammo were "likely" due to the augment surgery I'd had a few months before.  LOL LOL, LOL.  NEVER be casual with a woman who has amputated a breast for cancer ! 

I insisted on an ultrasound RIGHT NOW.  He again said he could find nothing and I wasn't to worry.  Just return in 6 mos.  LOL, when he looked up again not only was I Gone, I had mentally shredded his face with my fingernails.

I ret'd home to call my PS, schedule an appt with him and took my films. After looking at the films, he admitted he was "only a plastic surgeon" and   referred me to see a breast surgeon (I didn't get along with my original one: his lab had me at ER- when I was Er+) that afternoon (knowing that a woman who's had bc is not rational, I'm sure) and also because we live 2 hours from that city.

The breast surgeon looked and said he'd have his breast rads doc look and they agreed that waiting 6 mos was worth it because if we did a bx, we'd just be doing more surg.  and likely come up with more microcals if, in fact, that was the cause.

OK, I patiently waited and found that I wanted to get my mammos where the breast rads doc was(not the local turkey who didn't understand that recurrance is a terror causing incidence)--and so I did, and have since, btw.  It WAS due to surgical, Not bc.  So, been there, done that.  I cried all the way home, I think.  I don't really remember much about it.  I do remember that my husband bought me a pair of earrings to celebrate.  He also wandered around a churchyard with a ginko tree, picking up beautiful yellow leaves for me, finding out that that is my favorite leaf.  I have ginko leaf earrings (not from the tree. LOL)

Time and no recurrance has brought me the greatest relief.  I get my yearly mammo, so does my daughter, even tho she has to fight with her ins. company each year to get it covered.  For the first 2 years or so, I thought I had mets to everything, even a hangnail.  We used to joke on here about cancer of the toenail and multiple other body parts.  Get a cold, lung cancer, diarrhea: bowel cancer.  And God help you if your back hurt!!!  That's one of the first places bc mets to. 

And if you have a breast cancer history ANYthing wrong demands further testing, according to your doc, just to make sure.  I had a bleed in my spinal cord--neurosurg consult insisted that we HAD to do surgery and get a bx, you guessed it, because of my bc history.  My gut and a kind radiologist who said people just get these things and no one knows why, but they are rare told me to wait 6 mos and see what another MRI would show.  My gut mostly, but it was almost gone in 6 mos, so it wasn't a cancer lesion. 

After a while, you finally get so caught up in LIVING, that you don't have time to devote to the "what if's".  You really do think less and less about it --- but you skip breakfast on the day of your yearly mammo--just in case you have to hurl.  And when it's ok, you treat yourself to a Great lunch and some shopping. 

But between mammos, you come here and visit, advise and question, laugh and listen, cry, and BE with women who know where you've been and where we all dream we are going.  You LIVE, cause if you are not living, you are dying and who wants to Die for 30 years?  Think of all that time you've wasted NOT living. 

Blessings.

Hi Julie, and you are very welcome.  The link did'nt work for me.  Care to ck it out?