Mom's test is Wednesday

I'm sorry you and your mother seem to share such debilitating health anxiety. It must be awful to have it eat up your minutes, hours, days, and weeks that could be spent on so many other things, like enjoying life. I would try to inject some common sense about call-backs, but you seem to resent any information like that. Good luck to your mother.

Anonymous I am truly sorry your mother has been called back for additional imaging. It is very common and while it doesn't always lead to a discovery of cancer, it certainly can. I hope you can focus on the fact that the doctors are carefully monitoring your mother which is exactly what we want them to do. I hope that her second imaging resolves the question and that everything is fine. If there are additional steps to take, well we will do that also. I know this is difficult for you based on your post. Are there any resources available to you to help you process your mother's testing?

I think everyone reading and posting here hopes your Mom has a good outcome, whatever the result of her test is. I think everyone sends positive karma to you both. Aside from that, at this point it is unclear what you want from the board members here. You seem to unfortunately have quite a bit of anxiety. There really is nothing anyone here can do for that. We ALL understand being varying degrees of anxious as MOST of us have actually been diagnosed with cancer. And we deal with it. We try to be helpful. We try to pass along tips and information. I hope you remember that and consider your audience in your responses as well. Peace, and best wishes to your Mom. She must be stressed at the waiting to see what her diagnosis will be.

anonymous,

With the utmost gentleness, I agree with simoneRC. We have all experienced testing, waiting and worrying and most of us do actually have breast cancer! Yes, it is normal to be upset and anxious when a family member is facing a potential health problem but I would encourage you focus on the facts as they are currently known and not dwell on the “What if's...".

You asked another member not to mention your mother however you are posting in a section for those who are worried about having bc themselves. We do have a forum for caregivers and family members and that might be helpful in addressing your anxiety but as Simone said, remember your audience particularly if you are posting here.Here is the link for family members:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/16

I don’t think anyone is harassing you but while we understand your worries and understand that people react differently we encourage you to deal with what is known as that’s all you can do at the moment.

anonymous, I'm so glad that you've come back.

As exbrnxgrl said, remember that everyone one of us posting here has been through this ourselves... we've experienced the callback and the testing and the waiting and the worry. No one is saying that you shouldn't be worried, but we are offering you advice from our own experiences about how to manage the fear. We are explaining what worked for us when we were facing the same uncertainty. We've all been there for ourselves and in many cases with family members as well. In my case, separate from my own diagnosis, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer 16 years ago. So I was exactly in your shoes. I know you are scared for your mother. I can tell you that my mother managed it just fine, and she's fine now. She's 96 now.

Because I'm analytical, when I'm scared what always works for me is focusing on the odds. With a callback, the odds that the results will turn out to be just fine are very high. Here's a copy of what I posted to you previously, in your thread where you said you were worried that your mother might have metastatic breast cancer:

Callbacks after a mammogram are extremely common - approx. 10% of screening mammograms result in a call-back. Approx. 95% of callbacks do not end up with a cancer diagnosis.

So jumping from "callback after 3D mammo" to "metastatic breast cancer" is a huge leap.

About 25% of callbacks result in a biopsy. The rest are resolved simply through additional imaging.

About 70%-75% of biopsies are benign, meaning that only approx. 25%-30% turn out to be cancer.

80% of breast cancer diagnoses are early stage. Only 5%-6% of breast cancer diagnoses are metastatic at time of diagnosis.

What all these numbers mean is that at the point of the initial callback - which is where your mother is now - there is a 95% chance that she will not be diagnosed with breast cancer, only a 5% chance that she will get a diagnosis of breast cancer, and only a 0.025% chance that she will be diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. Even if she is sent for a biopsy - I've had 7 biopsies over the years so I know what that's like - it's still more likely that she will come out of this with a benign result.

Take a look at all of us who are responding to you. We all have breast cancer. And here we are, dealing with our diagnoses, living our lives, and trying to offer support to people who come here who are new to this and scared. No one is discounting your fears... but we trying to help you manage those fears. And we are pointing out that what you fear most is most likely not what's going to happen. If it does happen, your mother will deal with it - just like everyone does. The world does not end with a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Although I'm analytical, one of the other ways that I deal with my fears (this is very fresh for me because I just went through a cancer scare where my odds of diagnosis were pretty high) is to remind myself that if I am diagnosed, I will be thrown into the world of appointments and surgeries and treatments - so I should take advantage of the days before and enjoy myself. Don't waste these precious days worrying. Worrying won't change a thing and will only make me miserable. Worrying won't help me deal with whatever I might have to deal with - it will make it more difficult, not easier. I remind myself that if it turns out that everything is okay (as seems to be the case with my latest scare), all that worry will have been for no reason at all. What a waste of time that would be, worrying for something that never happened. That's what I tell myself whenever the worry kicks into high gear (low gear is kind of unavoidable for me).

While this type of situation might be new to you, the truth is that as your mother gets older, and as you get older, health issues will come up. That's a reality of life. So even if the outcome in this situation is good, at some point you will be in a situation like this again. So here is something to focus on to get your mind off your mother's callback. Don't try not to be scared. But think about your fears. Think about what is scaring you and why it's scaring you. Think about how you can manage this. Use the current situation as an opportunity to learn about yourself, to learn how you deal with uncertainty and fear, and figure out how you can manage yourself through these situations in the future.

Good luck to your mother with the callback. Please let us know how it goes.

I am glad your mom has you for her support. Will keep good thoughts.