New Member - Biopsy Tomorrow Morning, Trying to Be Calm

Thank you, Gypsy. I am positively going out of mind, if I’m to be honest. I keep hearing “irregular and ill-defined” and it’s really freaking me out since I did exactly what you aren’t supposed to do and looked up what that means. I’m super smart like that. -.-

I know there is a good chance that this is just the radiologist wanting to be certain and that it should be fine but... well, I’m sure you know the drill. Because if it isn’t, how do you even begin to cope? I don’t know.

I’ll add that I am severely emotophobic (terrified of vomiting), so the mere idea of having cancer treatments is completely overwhelming. Cart before the horse, I know, but it adds significantly to the worry about a potential positive biopsy result.

I plan to be drugged into a stupor tomorrow but then I won’t remember what questions to ask or the answers given. Such as why he expects a begnign result. I like to understand things. Perhaps I should write them down and ask them the jot down the answers?

I must sound crazy. That’s ok, though. I’m sure most do in similar circumstances.

April

I probably should have put everything here in my original post. My apologies! Pasted from other post:

So, biopsy is done. It seemed to go fine. It didn't hurt other than the nurse compressing afterward, although I'm getting sore now despite taking Tylenol. I actually thought he was still numbing it until I heard the vacuum.

I'm feeling less optimistic than I was yesterday. After my ultrasound, he said he didn't really think it was anything but couldn't say with 100% certainty. Today, he said he thinks it's most likely benign but that it could be cancer or precancerous changes, hence the desire for a biopsy. He told me that if I was his wife, he wouldn't feel comfortable sending me away without a biopsy. He also said that he can't say at this point if I have a mass. I asked him to explain what he was seeing while he was locating the lump. He did, and said that the tech initially thought it was nothing but then wasn't sure because, from one angle, you can see an irregular area without well circumscribed margins but from another, it completely disappears and looks like normal tissue. He said he didn't notice anything on my mammo in that area and if I hadn't found a lump, they never would have looked there on u/s. I think he's concerned that my dense tissues could be obscuring something. That scares me. What I saw looked much like the malignancy images online, however, I realize I'm not a trained professional. The nurse who was with me (very sweet woman, by the way) said that if she were in my shoes, she would trust that it's most likely benign and that she's never known him to be wrong. That should help but it doesn't because "most likely" leavestoo much room for the alternative.

Has anyone here had a similar experience? I wish I knew how likely this is to be benign other than the general 80% stat. The BI-RADS score given on the report is 4a, whichever I realize is low suspicion, but any suspicion is terrifying. I think I saw something like 6-13% of biopsies in this range are malignant but I don't know.

I keep wondering if I felt this at a smaller size and dismissed it since I have lumpy tissue. Is it the initial spot I forgot about and then couldn't remember the location of? If so, it was smaller then. Did I dismiss it as a cyst and now have infiltrating cancer? My head is an ugly place right now. I felt like what I imagine a cancer patient feels today with the machines and the tests and the fear. Ironically, I wore a beanie with my hair up, so seeing myself in the mirror did not help.

I have such a terrible feeling about all of this. I realize feelings aren't facts. I have few of those right now.

I want to feel like I can somehow handle whatever the results are but, honestly, I'm already pretty crazy so I don't feel equipped to do anything but crumble if the news is bad.

I'm rambling, sorry. It's been 5 days since being told I need the biopsy and I still have 4-5 days before the results are expected. I'm completely drained and feeling quite despondent.

Thank you for listening and for anything you'd like to share. I need everything I can get.

Thank you, Fab. It's really quite frustrating having dense tissues and no better options for screening, however, we work with what's available. I think it's great that you're advocating for your health.

I am in a weird place with all of this now. I think I'm trying to come to terms in some way with the fact that there is a real possibility that my results could be positive. Negative would be fantastic, of course, but trying to hang my hat in that isn't helping me cope. So, I'm trying to make peace with whatever may happen as best as I am able.

Everything is up in the air right now. We are in the middle of selling our home due to having a mold problem from a water leak (we can't afford to properly remediate it), so things were already pretty stressful before I got the news about reqiring a biopsy. It's really been a rough year all around so far, without going into detail.

Life is funny, isn't it?

Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate your reply. I think what is driving my need to prepare myself is that the lump disappeared sort of between my ribs when palpated from some angles (I'm scrawny and have very small breasts), so I have to wonder if that's why it's also looking like normal tissue from some angles on u/s. I don't know what score he would have given if that weren't but the case. He said it doesn't have the classic characteristics of cancer but is suspicious. He thinks it's most likely benign rather than that it is benign. When I asked why he feels confident, he pointed out that if he was confident that it's benign, he wouldn't want to do a biopsy. The difference seems significant to me but I can't really know if it is, if that makes sense. I've read that irregular shape and poorly defined margins can be highly predictive of malignancy while no vascularity and not being markedly hypoechoic can be good signs. All I can do is wait.

Thank you, poodles (how strange it sounds to call someone that, ha)! I hope so, as well. I agree that busy hands are good. I lost all of my yarn due to the aforementioned mold problem, so I want to go buy just one skein of pretty yarn and find a pattern for something beautiful to knit. I'd love to be packing house right now but we don't have boxes yet. Knitting would be good, though. It's great for anxiety. I also taught myself to crochet enough to make a Harper (from the Trolls movie) hat for my niece last Christmas. It took an age but she loved it!

P. S. All of my posts are edited due to my phone not playing well with the website. Crazy typos show up and some things end up being truncated. Strange.

Poodles- I may still purchase some. I’d like to pack some things in plastic totes, though, so I don’t want to buy twice. My other half’s mother has been collecting boxes for us and just dropped them off a little while ago, so I’m hoping to get started tomorrow.

Thank you, Polly. It’s good to hear from people who tolerated treatment well. Everyone responds differently to drugs, of course, but it’s still good to hear when you’re afraid you may have to take them. I watched several people in my family go through cancer treatments and it was awful but that was many years ago. I’m so glad you did well!

Thank you, guys!

Egads, that reaction was delayed. First, I sobbed and shook for ten minutes while my other half tried to figure out what to do, then needed some time to recover from the adrenaline crash, then did some things that hadn't been done, and when I finally went to bed, fell asleep almost instantly and woke up ten hours later.

I only wish no woman had to go through the fear (or diagnoses) of bc, or any human the fear of any cancer. It's a cosmetically unfair hand. Some folks here may hate hearing that you're strong because you're doing what is necessary, but you are. I had a second cousin who shut down after a cancer diagnosis (which I don't judge her for) and decided she didn't want treatment. Valid choice, of course, but to see people going through treatment with more grace than I am likely capable of gives so much hope to those who are or may be beginning their cancer journeys.