The C Word Part 2: The First Procedure

…it took me a minute to digest what the doctor had just said, I smiled slightly, thinking to myself, ‘everything will be fine, I’m in the right place, with the right people to take care of me.’

“You will need another mammogram, we need to locate the spot that we’ll need to biopsy. It’s a simple procedure and painless.” Both the doctor and nurse left the room, I was instructed to go back to the waiting room. Again, here I was sitting among a garden of burgundy colored women.

Waiting was the worst, waiting let my mind wander to places I didn’t want to go. I remember thinking, ‘I shouldn’t be here, this disease is for old people, not me, I’m only 42!’ Within and few minutes I am whisked away for the Mammogram. Now for anyone who has not had one of these tests, you don’t know what you’re missing. The previous ones I had were not bad compared to the one I was about to encounter. I was being squeezed from my chest wall outward, all the time thinking just hold on you can do this, you need to do this! Amazing what you can go through when you have to.

Next I was off to my biopsy. Back to the ultrasound room, as the technician prepared me for the biopsy, the doctor and nurse returned with a table full of instruments.

The doctor began informing me what was about to happen as if that makes you feel better. “We will be using a needle to numb the area and you should only feel a pinch.” Where have I heard that before, it’s never a pinch. “I will be using a biopsy needle that will excavate tissue samples from your breast.” Holy crap! The size of that needle was something to see for sure. “We need to do this biopsy because the area we see is abnormal, we will be sending these samples to the Pathology lab.” All I could do was say, yes and nod. I was in their hands, that was a helpless feeling.

The biopsy was done, actually not too bad, I’ve had worse procedures done before. About 20 mins later everything was done and I was on my way out of the medical clinic.

I was in shock, I had a lot of difficulty processing what I had just been through. The last words they said to me were;

“We will let you know the Pathology results in about 3 business days.” This was Wednesday, I wouldn’t get the results until Monday or Tuesday. The waiting begins…