discoveries

notice: i do not believe that anything will ever be accomplished by hiding or not speaking freely, when the situation warrants it. some people may find this blog entry a little too graphic. if you happen to be one of those people, i suggest that you stop reading now.

my past few days have been full of discoveries:

on wednesday night, i discovered two lumps in my right breast.

a little bit of background: i have had breast issues before. in the fall of 2008, i had a mass in my left breast. my ob/gyn referred me to a breast center, where i had a diagnostic mammogram and what was found was not anything to be worried about, probably fat necrosis. i went back six months later and they could not find what they were looking at six months earlier.

during the summer of 2009, i had a breast reduction that took me from a 38J to a 42DD. approximately five pounds of breast tissue was removed, tested and came back normal. this was truly a life changing moment in my life. for the first time in years, i was without aches and pains that had been with me every day. i also gained back a bit of self-confidence.

fast forward to wednesday night. i discovered the two lumps. each about the size of a small pea, smooth to the touch. not very mobile, in my opinion. my first thought was that perhaps they were bits of fatty tissue left over from my reduction surgery. there were sections of thicker tissue left in both breasts that had been decreasing over time.

to my surprise, i did not jump to the worst case scenario. my husband will confirm that in the past (several years ago) i had been the poster child for worst case scenario, hypochondria and medical anxiety so severe that it has caused me to be housebound for days at a time.

no, with this it was different. yes, i dr. googled. as my mother-in-law commented when we were talking about this the other day, "you *have* to! you want to be an informed patient. you want to know what's going on." so yes, i did. but not to the immediate worst conclusion. i went for other things: "lumps after breast reduction" "hard bumps after breast reduction" things like that. i ended up stumbling upon something called fibroadenoma, which are breast lumps composed of fibrous and glandular tissue. so i stuck that in my back pocked.

the next morning i started the phone calls. first to my ob/gyn's office. who was heading out of town the next day, couldn't get me in, could get me in to see someone else, but recommended i try to get in with the nurse practitioner at another location who handles my general care because she is very skilled at clinical breast exams.

sure thing -- on the horn to the other clinic. my nurse practitioner is booked for the day, is on vacation the next day but can i come in to see another nurse practitioner in an hour? absolutely, i'll be there.

i arrive at the clinic, meet with the nurse practitioner, have the exam and while she's not overly concerned -- we're moving onto the next step, no one is taking any chances. fine by me! i am given a sheet of locations and contact information for about ten clinics that handle mammograms, along with a copy of my referral for a digital mammogram and ultrasound. another sheet of paper with contact numbers highlighted is handed to me before i leave.

i start calling clinics the second i step out of the clinic door. my first call is to my ob/gyn's clinic, as they are on the list. when i get through, i am told that they do not perform mammogram's in the office, but they are performed a few floors down. unfortunately, not the digital mammogram that i need. i had been lucky enough to get in touch with one of my favorite nurses there, who transfers me over to the u of m breast center that i was seen at in 2008.

i spend a bit of time on the phone with a scheduling person at the breast center i was seen at in 2008. their first available appointment is next thursday. i imagine attempting to keep my 'don't worry until you have something to worry about' state of mind until at least next thursday..."is there any point in calling around to other clinics to see if i can get in earlier?" "sure, just call us back if you get in and we'll cancel this appointment"

i call another clinic, where i am transferred around and then reach their breast center. i speak to their scheduling person, who almost immediately tells me that if they cannot get me in the next day (friday), they will be able to get me in monday. i breathe a small sigh of relief. she puts me on hold and comes back. she can schedule me for monday, does that work? "is there any chance you can squeeze me in on friday? my schedule is *really* open" she checks and works me in, warning me that i may have to wait for a bit. no problem.

thursday evening involves bad television, great friends and good wine.

friday morning is spent forgetting about the upcoming appointment through lego indiana jones on the xbox with my five year old. after she is off to school, i pack up my large purse with enough things to keep me busy until sunday or whenever that hospital loses their wi-fi connection.

i arrive and am immediately put at ease by how serene the breast center is. there is one page of paperwork for me to fill out. i sit back down after filling it in, pull out my phone to e-mail my support team that i have arrived and just then i am called back.

i am led to a changing room/dressing room with lockers. similar to the one at the u of m but larger. instructed to change out of my top, remove any deodorant that i am wearing and put on one of their pink smock tops. after that i am free to lock up my things and wait in one of the chairs with a magazine, or if i keep my purse with me, something that i brought. just as i'm swallowing xanax number two (you didn't think i was actually making it through this entire thing without help, did you?) one of the techs comes in for me. it's mammogram time.

she leads me right down the hall and around the corner into one of the mammogram rooms, not horribly large, but large enough. soft lighting. she asks for my birth date and last name to make sure she has the right person. she instructs me where to put everything. she then places two stickers with metal dots on them right about where the lumps are on my breast. we step towards the machine and i follow all of her instructions: hold this handle, step this way, hold your breath, let your breath out, etc. both breasts were done but many more images were taken of my right side. i put my smock top back on while she goes to show my mammogram to the radiologist.

during my mammogram my phone had beeped so i check that while she was gone. it was one of support team, checking in. her message could not have come at a better time. i quickly text her back. the tech returns to the room and says that the radiologist would like to go ahead with the ultrasound.

we walk across the hallway and she says that i can lay down on the cot and the ultrasound tech will be with me shortly. a few seconds later, the ultrasound tech arrives. very pleasant and calming, just like everyone else there. i have to lay flat during the ultrasound. she removes the stickers with the metal dots and starts the ultrasound. i ask her if she can tell me if she finds anything and she says the radiologist will have to verify it first. but it's pretty easy to tell that she's found something when she starts taking measurements of images on the screen. she remarks that they look like little marbles.

after about ten minutes she excuses herself to talk to the radiologist. my medical curiosity had gotten the better of me at this point because i could see *something* in the lumps but they weren't completely full. i was also pretty convinced that we were heading to the next step: biopsy.

it was nice and dark in that room so i shut my eyes, as the day was starting to catch up with me. i heard the door click as the ultrasound tech came back in.

"oil cysts"

that is what the lumps are. hormone driven. nothing to worry about. they will never go away, will shrink and grow, but are not cancerous. if they grow and start to bother me, they will need to be removed. might actually be something from my reduction surgery, from what i have read.

relief.   grateful.  fatigue.  lucky.  lucky.  lucky.

the ultrasound tech and i speak for a few more minutes. i try to remember every question that my head is kicking out. i head back to the changing room and put on my top (and deodorant! do you know how weird it feels when you can't wear deodorant?!)

i then head to the front and stop at the desk and tell the nurse at the front about my experience. not because i'm on a high from my good news but because i think they need to hear it. the serenity of that office just *works* with the low lights and the muted colors.

when i was originally thinking about writing this up and posting it, there was no way it was going to end up this long. at first i was just going to post some of the things that i had learned over the past few days. but maybe it's a good thing that i went ahead and typed all of this up. a good reminder to me. maybe someone will stumble upon this who is going through the process. i know that i am the type of person that wants to find out all of the technical aspects.

so what did i learn?

you must advocate for yourself: i have been a big believer in this for years. my husband is now used to his wife never shutting up ;) but really, when i was sitting in my car, in the parking ramp, after my breast exam on thursday afternoon...all i was thinking was, "maybe someone can squeeze me in today" and if not today, then friday.

follow the golden rule: you remember it from school right? "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" i still remember it hanging in my 5th grade classroom. sure, i'm guilty of not following it. all the time (you should hear me in the car!) but when you're weeding through medical stuff, trying to get an appointment, reach an insurance person, etc...use it. the people you're talking to are people just like you.

find your support team: and surround yourself with them. when this went down, my e-mail went out. i couldn't really figure out what to say, but they got it. they're all thousands of miles away from me but i know if this had turned out differently they would be on the next plane. and vice versa. you just need to know that you have people like that, even if it's one person.

you are stronger than you think you are: and then of course i follow up the last one with this one! i try to come off as a pretty strong chick most of the time. with a lot of humor thrown in. it hides a lot of crap from my past. as i was driving to the tests this afternoon, i felt very...in control. i had my plan in place if this did turn out to be cancer. i had informed my husband and my mother-in-law of my plan. in the past when other medical stuff like this came up i would be the mess curled up on the couch, not even able to drag herself into the kitchen to make something to eat. i am no longer that person.

empowerment is a wonderful creature.

Day One: The making of a blog.

I've had the idea for this blog bouncing around in my head for awhile now, albeit in different forms. It's gone from being a blog about projects I like to tackle when I'm feeling up to it, to my days as a mom, wife and migraineur and then as a blog to track some changes I would like to implement beginning in 2012.

Well, as I was kicking around what to actually *do* with the blog the past few days, I thought "why not combine all three"? and here we are.

So it's Day One.

I can't say that today has been too eventful, which is fine. I have definitely been phasing out the junk that had worked its way into the diet over the holidays. This evening I gave Chobani yogurt a try for the first time -- LOVE.