At the Beginning

So I am just at the beginning of having breast cancer, and my Doctor referred me to this site for guidance and support.

 I am 28 years old and it has been one week since I found out I have cancer.  Of some sort.  I had a lingering chest cold and was having pain in the right side of my chest with difficulty breathing, so my Doctor referred me for a CT scan, as she thought I might have a blood clot in my lung.  I went and had the CT scan done, and the radiologist comes in and says "Good news is you don't have a blood clot; Bad news is I found a lump about the size of a half dollar in your right breast, and you need to go in for follow up".  I regret having gone alone to the CT scan, because I was absolutely stunned and dazed when he said that.  Of course after the fact driving home I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask, but at the time when he told me I was at a loss for words.  So the next day after the CT scan I was at my general practitioner for follow up and then over to the lab for a fine needle aspiration of the lump.  Apparently the lump is pretty deep inside the breast and under the breast tissue which is why I could not feel it during self exams, nor could my Doctor feel in when she did an exam.  My Doctor said the fine needle aspiration came back positive for cancer markers, but I don't understand exactly what that means.

I am scheduled Monday morning for a biopsy and for exploratory surgery.  They are going to be doing a lumpectomy and checking the lymph nodes while they are in there.  My Doctor said they will send a portion of the tumor out for biopsy which will be able to verify what type of cancer it is and what stage it is at, and they will also know if it has spread to the lymph nodes as well.  Once the results come back is when we can start planning my treatment options such as more surgery if necessary on the breast and radiation vs. chemotherapy.

I am a little concerned, as my mother had breast cancer when she was 22 and had a full masectomy and lymphectomy at that time.  I can say that my mother is a great resource right now and is the only person I believe when she tells me "I know how you are feeling".  She has been through this, and I'm sure she felt a lot of the same exact things I am.  In talking with my mother I have found that her grandmother passed away from breast cancer, although they didn't know what it was back then, as her death certificate stated "tumors of the breast".  My mother's aunt also died at age 40 from breast cancer, and I found out tonight that my father's paternal grandmother had breast cancer, was treated and in remission from it and then died four years later from cancer of the throat.  That is just the family history that we are positive on, there are some unknown causes of death for females on both maternal and paternal sides of the family.

I'm not sure what I am supposed to do or where I am supposed to start.  I apologize if I don't know some of the correct terms or spell them wrong, I'm just learning all this stuff, and right now I don't have a lot of information.  The last four days have been absolutely agonizing for me, waiting for my sugery.  I have never been a patient person and I am definitely not being patient now.  I am a do-er, not a waiter.  I want to know exacty what the answer is and formulate a plan to start beating this, not sit around and wait.  The pre-op instructions I got said the biopsy will take two to three days to come back, so I should know for sure by Wednesday or Thursday.  The report I got between the CT Scan, the mammogram, and the ultrasound is that I have a 13mm X 13mm X 6mm asymmetrical nodule with hypoechoic shadowing.  I've tried looking it up online but I'm not sure I really understand what it all means.  I have to wait for the results of the biopsy to come back for my referral to oncology.  If anyone knows what that all means or has had something similar I would love to hear your thoughts.

I know I am scared more than I have ever been, but I also know I'm pretty strong willed and a fighter.  I feel bad because while I know people mean well I am getting a litte irritated with others telling me to be positive and keep my head up.  I know that is cliche and is meant to be supportive, but I have to find a healthy mix of positive vs. reality.  I do want to be positive but I also don't want to stick my head in the sand either.  My partner and I have had a very rough week, and to be honest I'm not sure him and I are going to make it through this.  We have had a couple heated arguments because he doesn't understand the abrupt change in my personality and what I am focused on.  I am the type of person who when I get focused on something it is 100%.  There have been times this last week that I can't seem to go more than 30 minutes without crying, and sometimes I don't even know what I am crying for.  My partner tells me that I need to calm down and not be so stressed out, and I can't get him to understand that I can't make this stress disappear and act like nothing is going on.  I can't get him to understand that there are going to be times that I am calm and focused while other times I am an absolute basket case, and it has driven a wedge between us.  I have tried to limit the amount of research I do online, because we all know that some of the stuff is unreliable and some of it is worst case scenario, and I don't want to make my anxiety level any higher than it already is.  My partner told me that other night when I was in the middle of a breakdown that I was being too sad and it seemed like I was just rolling over and not fighting.  I told him that I would fight this with everything I had but I couldn't NOT be sad when it felt like my whole life has been completely turned upside down in the blink of an eye, and that everything in my life changed with one sentence.  It's just like he doesn't get it, and now I am resentful and upset with him because I don't feel as if he is being supportive at all.  I feel like he wants me to only think positive and talk about how this is all going to work out, and that I'm going to be like some warrior going to battle.  At this point I feel like talking to him is like banging my head against the wall, and I don't know how to get him to understand how I am feeling and what I need from him.  I've tried to tell him but that just doesn't seem to be working.  So that has added an entire new level of stress on top of this.  As I tried to tell him the other day I need him now more than I have ever needed him and I feel further away from him than I ever have.  I don't expect him to be a mind reader or now exactly how I am feeling or what to do, but I have tried to tell him what I am thinking, what I am feeling, and what I need (which sometimes changes from day to day), and his response is that I am dwelling too much on this and need to stay positive that the biopsy results will be something good.  I'm so frustrated with him that I could cry.

 I apologize if I seem a little long winded, I guess you could count this as my introduction.  If I have posted this in the wrong forum than I apologize, and if so if someone could move it to the correct forum I would appreciate it.  I would love to hear some feedback on others who have already moved past this stage.  Like I stated in my subject line, I'm just at the beginning, and I'm only a week in.  I know I have a lot of steps ahead of me, but right now I'm just focused on making it to Monday and then to the results of the biopsy.  Thanks for taking the time to read what I've written, and I hope to be spending a lot of time here.