So when does the doctor say "Cancer" ?

So I am used to no hair but now I have this silly grey fuzz. It actually feels like puppy fur. Let's get back to waiting to hear the "c" word. Time came after my Mammo, and a 3D mammo, after seeing the PC (primary care doctor) ,then seeing the surgeon in the "cancer" center it was time for biopsy. Three kinds! one tip right now if you are told no aspirin,,  advil, only tylenol heed your doctors warning. especially in the case where you are having a mammo guided biopsy!Who the hell knew there was such a thing?
Biopsies didn't worry me , that is the procedure itself. I had them before to check cyst. But when I was told "oh, we have to do a mammo guided biopsy too." I was worried about that it sounded torturous.   It is what it sounds like. They squash you in he mammogram and do a fine needle biopsy while your breast is flattened. t hey they check the pictures and do a second biopsy. FINALLY it's done!! Oh they do shoot you with lidocaine so it doesn't hurt much. They do tell you to take tylenol as necessary as they are putting bandaids on then wrapping your breast in ace bandages with ice packs . "make sure you ice every 30 minutes and take tylenol. Well that was about when I remember I had taken advil about 4-5 days before the biopsies. I forgot and took them. Damn. I thought It would be ok , no excessive bleeding during the procedure.  I went home. I iced, I took tylenol.. I was in for a bit of a shock the next morning  My breast had purple bruising so dark some of it looked black. It was the entire side of my breast allte was up my side almost to my armpit. So heed the warning about no advil or aspirin before a biopsy , and especially before the mammo guided biopsy if you are unlucky enough to ever need one.
Waiting you do a lot of that. Time to go back to the surgeon was a few days. I walked in knowing she was finally going to tell me what I knew already . Cancer. She said you have something in your right breast,it is and all I heard was blah , blah blah.... and there is something minor in your left breast. I also had to have a breast MRI, because one mammo showed the size of the cancer as bigger than the other mammo. So I went for the MRI.
After all the testing and more waiting I saw the doctor one  more time, to discuss having surgery. I'm ok with surgery it does not scare me. She said you have almost stage 2 cancer in your right breast, stage 0 in your left. Stage 0? Who knew there was such a thing. Plus they were 2 different kinds of cancer. It is very common. I did not know this either. so when do you do the surgery? I want this done and to get on with my life!Who knew how long all the treatment for breast cancer would take? Not Me!! We will schedule surgery for you but first you have to go see Dr. Ott-Young.  Who  is she? She is a plastic surgeon. Another surgeon??  Yep. This was also news to me. I had no idea how much I'd have to go through, before I even had my surgery date.Do not let slide any questions you have for your doctor . If you want to know exactly what will happen to your body. If you don't understand have them explain ti simply to you.
I went to the hospital still unsure of exactly the surgery I would have . A mastectomy,  a lumpectomy one of each or a bilateral radical double mastectomy.I ended up with the latter. I will talk about my visit with the plastic surgeon next blog. Have a great weekend. 

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