Worried About a Lump? Some Good News!

Hi girls,

3 days ago, my boyfriend noticed a lump in my left breast, 3 years after diagnosis and treatment of IDC in my right breast and lymph nodes.  I did the whole surgery, chemo, rads thing for the right breast, so a new lump TERRIFIED me.  I had an appt for my 6 month mammo and check-up coming up in the next month, so I called the next day and changed my appt (I was nice, but firm, and they were very accomodating about speeding things up once they heard my whole tale of woe).  Mammogram showed nothing, and the ultrsound they did right after the mammo also showed nothing. I talked to the oncologist, and he said pursuing it was up to me and to my breast surgeon- and then he looked at my face and made me an appt for the following day with the surgeon.

I then proceeded to spend a couple of miserable hours last night searching webpages and chat rooms for similar cases to see if I could estimate my risk of a new cancer on the other side (I'm BRCA-, but I'm also pretty young, 34 at 1st diagnosis).  Most of the posts described patients who were met with resistance when they asked for biopsies in these types of situations, and and ALL but one of the posters ended up with malignancies.  You can imagine the quality of my sleep last night 

I saw the surgeon at 9 this morning.  He felt my breast, agreed that there was a lump in there, and then gave me a lecture about how breasts change with menstrual cycles and so on, and said we should wait to see what things looked like in 3 months.  This man is a good surgeon, but he's a bit of an insensitive arse, plus I was all hopped up on terrible internet stories, so I was again firm but polite, and said that I didn't want to wait another 3 months to find out what was going on in there.  He agreed to do a fine needle aspiration biopsy to provide me peace of mind.  This took literally 3 minutes, a small shot of anasthetic and another plastic needle and vial.  Even when you add in the pathology part, we are not talking about a serious or expensive procedure.

They called me 3 hours later- seriously, 3 HOURS- to tell me no sign of malignancy.  I'm to go back in 3 months, just to be sure nothing is wierd, but everything is fine.  Bottom line here is that EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE A CANCER HISTORY, NEW LUMPS CAN BE NOTHING! I'm sure that my risk of a new cancer in the "clean" breast is a teensy bit (I read 1%) higher than another non-cancer-history woman, but that means these lumps are, 79% likely to be nothing, instead of 80%.  I'm not promoting ignoring new lumps by any stretch- we all need to fight a bit for good health and our peace of mind- I'm only saying that it truly is most likely nothing, and proving that should not be a big deal.

I know there's zero chance of eliminating all the worry that comes with finding another lump, but maybe this story will provide just a little more hope and peace while dealing with it.  Love to all you tough ladies out there!