17 November 2017: Booked in before work at Unley Breastscreen for a screening Mammogram. Just because I was making appointments for health checks – eyes, PAP smear, did the bowel screening…
Two weeks later, get a call from them asking me to come in for an appointment in two days time, on 1st December, as there was an area in my right breast that didn’t look right. I was told that the appointment might take up to 4 hours. I spent the next couple of days trying not to think about it too much.
Dave met me at work and drove me to the appointment. I was taken in by a doctor for an examination. As it was her first day at Breastscreen, she was partnered by another doctor who also examined me. They both thought that they could feel a “thickening” but not positive. Off to another room for a diagnostic mammogram of the area, then into another room for an ultrasound. This was very thorough and included the underarm area. The sonographer was no sooner finished than a man came into the room, introducing himself as the radiologist. He told me that I needed to have a core biopsy under local and that it would be done immediately. The sonographer got my glasses so that I could see the form I was signing, I was turned around on the bed and had an anaesthetic needle in my breast. Then he took 4 samples of the tissue – the third one apparently hadn’t enough anaesthetic as he noticed when I just about hit the ceiling! Very sore and sorry for myself and packed with ice to reduce the swelling, Dave and I were told by the nurse that I would need to wait until Tuesday afternoon(this was Friday, of course) to find out the results as there would be a multidisciplinary team meeting that afternoon and they would review everything then.
Tuesday afternoon eventually came and again Dave picked me up from work for the appointment. We sat in the waiting room and saw women come out, one obviously relieved, the other not. We didn’t have long to wait before I was called in. The doctor introduced himself as a breast surgeon consulting with Breastscreen. He then went on to tell me that I had a 2.5cm tumour that it was malignant – invasive lobular carcinoma – and the bottom dropped out of my world. I honestly don’t remember a lot of what he said except that I would need to get a referral from my GP and that he was stressing that it wasn’t a medical emergency. Although it was late in the afternoon, when the clinic rang my GP, Sue Boyer, she said that she would wait for us to get up to Gumeracha.
We picked up the girls on the way and drove straight to Gum. By the time we got there, Sue told us that she had taken the liberty of making an appointment for the following afternoon with someone she considered to be one of the best breast surgeons in Adelaide, Dr Jim Kollias. I don’t remember much about the consultation but she sent us over to the hospital to pick up some sleeping tablets and told me to take them.
The following afternoon, we went to see Dr Kollias. Another examination, a discussion about the cancer (he said that the screening sonographer had done a remarkable job to pick up the cancer as it was very hard to see) and a recommendation that I have a partial mastectomy in the first instance but that I needed to have blood tests done and scans to ensure there was no further spread to bones or organs. Blood test – easy. Scans took almost the entire day at Calvary and not so easy, emotionally. From the moment I drove up Strangways Tce, I was assaulted by memories of seeing Lori in the hospice there.
Another weekend spent waiting anxiously with an appointment to see Dr Kollias on the Monday night. His first statement when we were finally shown into his office was that the scans were clear. I promptly embarrassed myself by bursting into tears. So, back to what he had originally said, partial mastectomy with sentinel nodes taken. Based on whether there are clear margins of tissue around the tumour and if the nodes are also clear will determine whether I go back in for a full mastectomy the following week. Then the tumour will be scanned so the oncologist can suggest a course of further treatment/s. It could be hormone therapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or a combination of them.
This leads me up to tonight – my last night before treatment starts. I’m feeling anxious about the surgery. I’m feeling confronted and confused about the concept of someone cutting off part or all of my breast – not because of any aesthetic attachment to it but just that it’s a surface part of me that I can see. Not that I’m feeling very partial to my right breast at the moment – we’re definitely not on the best of terms (and I’m feeling a little ambivalent about the loyalty of the left one, if truth be told). And, of course, even though I’m trying to be positive and take one step at a time, sometimes the emotions overtake me and the future is too frightening to contemplate.
I can’t believe that it has only been just over two weeks since diagnosis. It seems like this has been my reality for so much longer and I know that this is just the start of it. I’ve had eight or nine appointments since this started and it has completely consumed not just my life, but the whole family.
Tomorrow, 21 December, I go in for surgery. I should be discharged on Saturday, 23 December, just in time for Christmas. At least all of my Christmas shopping is done and the presents wrapped. I’m not sure how incapacitated I will be but I’ve already told the kids they’re cooking Christmas lunch!
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