The Journey Now: Part 3

When I got my mammogram results, I was furious!

To explain why, I have to digress a moment, and explain something about cancer survivors. We get lots and lots of cancer scares. These are the moments when we have the elephant sitting on our chest, but we get to tame it back up on the shelf. There are suspicious lymph nodes, shadows on ultrasounds, questionable x-rays and iffy mammograms. Each one causes the elephant to grow, each reprieve puts it back on the shelf.

The elephant
 makes itself known.

I had had just such a scare: my surgeon was sure that one of my lymph nodes was suspicious. My endocrinologist was doubtful. The FNA tech was downright dismissive.  And sure enough, it was just a little swollen. It remains a bit bigger than other nodes, and I know my doctor is going to keep an eye on it. But there was no cancer.

I go through a sort of mini-hell every time: what does this mean if it is cancer? Surgery? More RAI? Will it upgrade me to a higher stage? (The only stage left for my in the Thyroid Cancer department is stage IV  As with all cancers, it's the distant metastasis stage. With thyroid cancer, that means something slightly different, than, say breast cancer, but you still DON'T WANT TO BE THAT GAL.) 

So, when the findings came back, and it was clear that everyone but my surgeon was not concerned, I relaxed and got mad.  Another scare.  I had had plenty, in my time.  Looking back, almost all of them turned out to be something.  I got off this time. But I was still mad at having the stress.

I had recently changed doctors, and moved my care to a new health system: Henry Ford. It was the first time they did a mamm on me, but I brought some of the old ones for them to scan when I came in for my mammogram last August. 

A few days later, I awoke when my phone buzzed at 5 a.m. The mammogram findings came in. I read them sleepily. Radiologic resident Briana somebody found a 7mm area of suspicion:

Left Breast Findings:
There are scattered fibroglandular densities (25% - 50% fibroglandular). The patient has had previous radiation therapy and a previous lumpectomy. An area of focal asymmetry is present measuring 7 millimeters in the upper inner quadrant posteriorly. (Emphasis mine.)

IMPRESSION:

Breast Cancer Cells

LEFT BREAST: S/P previous radiation therapy and lumpectomy. Focal asymmetry measuring 7 millimeters in the upper inner quadrant posteriorly. Additional projections, spot compression and ultrasound are recommended at this time.

That's when the blood started to boil. 

Briana? This kid must be the age of my daughter, who is named Brianna. I'm a cancer survivor! Why didn't the head of radiology read my films? (He did.) Why didn't my doctor call me? (I beat her to it, basically.) I am not going through this again!

But I did. After I talked to our company Health Coach (I highly recommend them) who talked sense into me, I got the ultrasound. It was even bigger and hypoechoic and vascularized. That means the spot is a solid lump, and it has veins feeding it lots of blood. These are consistent with cancer, of course. I also looked at the x-ray myself. Now that I'm a "professional patient," I've learned to recognize when things are amiss. This mass was definitely not normal.

The Henry Ford team did the Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) that afternoon. It was cancer, breast cancer, again. It appeared to be recurrent, but they would take a much closer look with surgery.  The only options available to me now are mastectomy and possible chemotherapy, depending on the tumor's properties. 

I met my surgeon, and liked him. I agreed to have it done at Henry Ford. (I had quite the struggle about going back to University of Michigan; I decided to move all of my care under one roof, eventually.) As with many surgeries, I got through it with flying colors, and I was ready to be back at it soon.  I lost the drain in three days.  The doctor removed the stitches in a week, and put steri-strips over the incision.

A few days later, as I am dressing the wound, it all bursts wide open.

Talk about panic! I screamed and I don't think Brian has ever moved faster. He had to squelch my panic by pointing out that wasn't blood I was gushing, just fluid. But I had to go back to the ER, and I was in surgery that afternoon.

My doctor was away, so his partner  -- well, actually, his partner's resident -- closed me back up again.  I didn't get those stitches out until December. Even then, I wasn't healed fully. It seemed I wasn't healing because the past radiation was slowing my healing mechanisms. I needed to be ready for the next step; I needed to be closed.  

I didn't stop bleeding until January 20 or so, long after we figured out what came next.