Pre-Diagnosis

image: Wikimedia Commons

At the end of September 2018, I felt a lump in my left breast and my world was turned upside down. I tried to ignore it for about a week - (1) to see if it would go away on its own, as the internet suggested it might, but (2) because I was uninsured and waiting for my new health coverage to kick in from my new full-time job. Throughout my adult life, I have been without insurance more than with, and this is the first time I was able to get coverage through my own, full-time employment (as opposed to through a spouse's insurance or through the ACA healthcare marketplace).

When the lump still felt like a brussel sprout under my skin in early October, I called my Primary Care Physician, who is also my gynecologist. She referred me for a mammogram but assured me that often in young women, these things are just a cyst, and not to get too concerned about it just yet. I called from my car to schedule the mammogram, and spent the next week trying to convince myself that it was, in fact, just a cyst even though deep in my gut I already knew.

At age 36, I had never had a mammogram before. I changed into the hospital gown and waited with the other women in the small waiting room, pink pens and brochures and other decor scattered throughout the breast center. When it was my turn, a tech brought me into the room and situated my breasts, one at a time, into the machine. She viewed the images on her screen, and readjusted me a few times to try to get clear pictures of the area where my lump was palpable, near my left armpit. She gave no indication of what she was seeing on the screen.

I returned to the waiting room to await the results. While most of the time, mammogram results come days or weeks later, this particular breast center has doctors reviewing the images electronically on the spot. Just a few minutes later, a woman pulled me into a separate waiting room, private, and asked some questions: Had I ever had a mammogram before? Why did I come in for one now? Did I have a family history of breast cancer?

After the fact, I realize that this was the moment I should have known I had cancer. It was clear on my mammogram that something was terribly wrong. But I was still in denial. No. No family history.

She led me to an exam room for an ultrasound. I laid on my side, lump facing up, and a resident globbed on the ultrasound gel and took several images with the ultrasound wand. After a few minutes, a radiologist came in to review the images and to take another look. She was not encouraging.

The radiologist ordered a core biopsy of the lump and a nearby lymph node that appeared abnormal on the ultrasound as well. Without saying "you have cancer" she was telling me "you have cancer." She asked if I had anyone with me. She encouraged me to schedule the biopsy at the front desk before leaving. She handed me a business card for a breast surgeon and said I should make an appointment now, don't wait for the biopsy results, and that whatever this was, I should have it removed.

I cried.

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