In the beginning of 2010, I started getting a sharp pain in my right breast. It would come and go. I finally went to the doctor for a check up and had my first mammogram. I was almost 40.
My mother had a cyst removed when she was in her 40's. My sister had had breast cancer three years earlier. They caught my sister's cancer early. We praised God that she wasn't staged. She had a lumpectomy and radiation.
They called me after my first mammogram. They told me that the radiologist had seen something "suspicious." I was told that they would do an ultrasound if they found anything suspicious on my second mammogram.
I went in and remember the technician looking at the markings on my first mammogram. She was trying to pinpoint the spots she needed to focus on. She would measure the mammogram with her thumb and pinky and then on me. When she was all done, I waited with anticipation and worry as she took it to the radiologist. It wasn't too long afterwards that she came back and told me that everything was fine and that I could go home.
Words cannot express the relief you feel when you hear that it is not cancer. You can breathe; you can relax. You want to jump up in the air and yell, "Yippee!" I called my husband telling him the good news.
Unfortunately, the sharp pain continued. The mammograms were in July and I went back to my doctor on my birthday. I complained about the continued pain in my right breast. She ordered an x-ray.
I'm not angry with the doctor, but I do not care to see her. Did I trust her? Yes, because she is a doctor. Did I question her? She is the doctor, I am not. Do I wish that I had pressed her for an ultrasound? In retrospect, YES.
Seven months later, I did find out that I did have breast cancer (on the side that had the sharp pain) and thyroid cancer...
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