Okay, so the dreaded biopsy, although it had its…uhm, moments…was not as dreadful as I dreaded.
At 9:45 ayem, I presented myself at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, bearing a hybrid Attitude of annoyance, frustration, concern, and raw terror. And also bearing a laptop computer: my lovely students turned in nine more papers after I went to bed at 11:30 last night. Graded four of these while waiting to be conducted to the torture chamber.
Here’s something that’s kewl about getting treated at a teaching hospital: every procedure comes with a running explanation of what’s going on!
Yes. The senior doctors have underlings (we in academe would call those “graduate students”; doctors call them “residents” and “fellows”). These lovely creatures are allowed to do some parts of some procedures, but overall all parts of every procedure are turned into detailed lessons in medicine. Once again, I learned one helluva lot.
First off, I presented the distinguished professor of medicine and her apprentice with a challenge: one lump in your boob gets four samples excised. Two? Yesh: eight of ’em. And it takes some physical strength to pull this off. So our young thing, who was made to retrieve seven of the eight samples, got quite the workout today.
To my astonished relief, they did not place me face-down on a table and try to thread my boob through a hole in said table. Because of the location of my particular lesions, I got to relax on my back while they messed around with trying to figure out what (if anything) ails me.
First thing they do is pump your boob full of lidocaine. And hallelujah, sisters and brothers! It WORKS. The lengthy, repetitive procedure was almost pain-free. There was a little discomfort (well, we’d call that pain) when they had to enter the second lump that’s very close to the chest wall, but when I whined, they squirted in some more lidocaine.
Apparently, some people experience lidocaine injections as painful. Thank the heavens, I do not.
At every step along the way, the senior physician was encouraging and instructing the young(ish) fellow. This was a) helpful, because I could easily tell how she was doing and how far we were progressing and b) I learned an awful lot about the procedure itself.
They only made one “skin nick” (I would define that as a small incision) to access both “nodules.” The senior physician said she thought they actually were one object, but because others had seen them/it as two entities, she wanted to biopsy “both” of them. Whatever “they” are. I agreed that this was wise.
After the frolic was done, the elder physician volunteered (because, I’m sure, she realized I would have liked to ask her WHAT DO YOU THINK, DOC???) that she couldn’t speculate on whether the things were benign or malignant. However, she said, they are so small that if they are cancer, she thought they would not yet have metastisized into the lymph notes.
She said the element of most concern is my age: When you’re pushing 70, you don’t usually develop benign growths.
I said that about a year and a half after I had that last mammogram (with which they’re comparing the present results, three years later), I lost 30 pounds. My boobs had already started to shrink with age, but when I went on the diet, they reduced big time. And all my adult life, I’ve had “dense” and “lumpy” breasts.
“Ah!” said she. It’s possible, she opined, that the things are fibroadenomas and only became visible as the surrounding tissue became less dense and lost fat content.
So that upped the possibility that the damn things could be benign.
I think, from what I’ve heard from the other quacks, that the odds are not good. But if you go by what this woman says, even if it is cancer, I may not be checking out very soon.
LOL! She advised me to take ibuprofen for any residual aches and pains. I pointed out that I’m allergic to that, too. She was shocked.
I said by and large I just have to gut out whatever little pains come my way.
She said, “Well, then..plan to gut this one out.”
I said, “My preferred analgesic is whiskey.”
She laughed.
I’m glad it wasn’t worse and I’ll cross my fingers for you.
Have I mentioned that I have a bottle of Maker’s Mark with your name on it, right here?
I’m not sure I can breathe a sigh of relief just yet but I am surely glad that the procedure itself wasn’t as bad as imagined. Now to recross the fingers and toes for them being fibroadenomas/nothing to worry about.
Ah, my favorite potable!
LOL! This sounds morbid, but in a way I’d almost rather have it be something real that has to be treated. If I find out that all this flap and fear and interruption of my life has all been over nothing, I am not going to be a happy camper.
Did you realize there are studies out there showing that women who receive negative biopsy results may refuse to go back for further screening mammograms? Imagine that!
So far, so good. My whole family is pulling for you. Think positively!!
This is interesting, by the way: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/05/13/adding.ultrasound.screening.mammography.brings.benefits.risks
There have been doubts about overscreening leading to unnecessary biopsies at least since 2008!
So are you still going to consult with other docs on this, or does having the biopsy mean you are going to work with the original doc who wanted the biopsy? Just curious.
While this has been scary, if I were in your shoes I’m not sure I’d want it to result in a cancer diagnosis just because it was a pain in the a**! That said, a colleague of mine who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her mid-sixties pulled through and is enjoying life today. It also made her realize she was done with working and ready to spend all her time just enjoying life. She’s not independently wealthy, either, just happy to have time to enjoy her garden and her friends.
I’ll absolutely get another opinion from the Mayo. The results are supposed to come in the middle of next week, and I have an appointment next Friday to meet with a surgeon at the Mayo’s Breast Care Center.
If the results are negative, I may cancel the Mayo appointment. Maybe not: it might be good to hear what they think the thing is, since what KIND of benign object it is might influence how it should be dealt with in the future. Diagnosis is, after all, as much an art as a science.
If the result is positive, then you may be sure I’ll have the surgery done at the Mayo. It appears that you can come from some other hospital to St. Joe’s for the radiation treatment, so I’ll try to arrange for that here in town, unless the Mayo is doing it at their hospital on the 101, which is within reasonable driving distance. Given St. Joe’s low HealthGrade scores for patient safety, and given the experience I had there some years ago when I damn near died, I wouldn’t have surgery done there on a bet. First choice would have to be the Mayo; then, I suppose, John C. Lincoln, which is a little better than St. Joe’s and is very close to the house.
Mighty lucky to survive ovarian cancer. My friends who’ve had it are no longer with us.
More on that: I guess my point in that offhand remark was this: I will NOT appreciate it if all this distress and all this worry and all these tears and all this unfuckingbelievable disruption of my life at a point where there is NO ONE to help me comes to naught. I would feel a great deal better about it if the results turned out to be positive, so that the whole horror show took place for a reason. And I will not be happy if I learn that this is the result of overscreening and unnecessary further testing. Let us remember that St. Joe’s rate of followup testing after mammograms is 2.5% above the 14% rate that Medicare.gov assesses as “unacceptable” and says indicates a great deal of unnecessary invasive follow-ups are occurring.
Put me through this shit if there’s a good reason for it. If there’s not, leave me alone!
Thanks for going into detail about the biopsy. Of course, I’m hoping and praying that the diagnosis is benign.
Thinking of you. Waiting for the results is the hardest part, I think. Do hope everything is benign, but if not, at least you have gotten a very, very early start on things.
Very best wishes!
Thanks for everyone’s good wishes!!
Happy to hear the biopsy is over and not too traumatic. Sending good wishes for more good news.
I’ll be a little “new age-y” and suggest that maybe, as Linda sort of suggested, the reason [hoping it turns out benign] is to give you the option to reevaluate how much you want to continue with those jobs that aggravate you, especially since your chat with your accountant,
Although, I must admit, I might feel the same way you do.
LOL! There’s something to that.
It’s hard to get off the work roller-coaster. Somethin’s always poppin’ around here, and sometimes saying “no” isn’t easy.