I’ve been thinking about this year a lot, as 2019 winds down, and there’s a thread I’ve been meaning to post for awhile. Exactly one week before @judiparadis, my woulda-been mother-in-law, died of stage IV breast cancer, my period ended. And I found a lump in my right breast.
I figured, “This is probably just a hormonal thing, since I just had my period, and it’ll go away soon. I shouldn’t pay too much attention to it.” So I tried not to. Honestly, it was hard to give it too much attention, anyway.
Judi wasn’t doing well, and @RobtheCarter and I had moved in with his parents to be there and help out where we could. That was occupying most of my mental space, so I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth for the lump hanging out in my breast.
But then Judi died, and we took a few days of bereavement leave to process and help with memorial service planning, and I had a little too much time to sit with the idea of the lump I had found. I did a lot of googling. How worried should I be?
Most of the medical advice I could find said that people who get their periods should wait one or two cycles after finding a lump in their breast to start worrying. So... I waited. And I worried, all the time, while grieving Judi, even though everything said not to worry yet.
Honestly, I was kind of afraid to say out loud that I had a lump in my breast (to anyone except Rob). I had a primary care doctor assigned by my insurance, but I had never been to see her. So I felt pretty alone, scared, and unsure of where to go next.
I thought, “No one I know who’s my age has had this experience.” I knew my mom had had a few benign breast lumps biopsied when I was a kid, but other than that, the only people I knew who had mentioned having a lump in their breast had been older than me and had had cancer.
But then I started saying it out loud to a few people. “I found a lump in my breast, and I don’t know what to do next. I think I’m supposed to wait and see if it goes away with my next period?” All of a sudden, the people around me, my peers, started sharing their stories.
Friends who’d had biopsies, breast ultrasounds, mammograms... they were around my age, sometimes younger, sometimes just a little bit older. And they had ended up being fine. Some of them still needed regular monitoring of their breast lumps. Some didn’t.
It didn’t make me worry that much less. I still didn’t want the lump to be in my breast. But it made me feel less isolated and less stuck in my own head. And I kept on waiting.
Almost two months after I had first found the lump, I finally got my period again. (Grief + Nexplanon ≠ regularity to your menstrual cycle.) I kept waiting. My period lasted a week, and when it was done...
The lump was still there. I really desperately had wanted it to just go away so I didn’t have to keep wondering and worrying. But it was time to find a doctor. It had been two months, and the lump hadn’t gone away with another period, so it was time.
I started looking for a new primary care close to my new apartment. It took a week or two, but I finally worked up the courage to make an appointment. The first one they had available was about a week and a half away. So... I waited some more.
And then, three months after finding the lump in my breast, a doctor did a breast exam and confirmed that it was, indeed, a lump and that she thought it was very likely benign, but I would need to see a specialist to get a breast ultrasound.
She referred me to the same place Judi had been treated for her breast cancer, the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital. They were really nice there, and super comforting when I told them I was feeling anxious. They did the ultrasound.
And they told me it was probably benign but they thought I probably needed a biopsy, too. So we scheduled the biopsy for two weeks later. An ultrasound-guided needle core biopsy. As you might imagine by now, I spent the two weeks between the ultrasound and the biopsy worrying.
When the day came for my biopsy appointment, I took a Lyft from work to the hospital and sat down in the waiting room a half hour early. (I’m perpetually five minutes late, so if you know me, this might be the most surprising part of this story.)
I was nervous, and the doctor was, once again, very comforting. They numbed up the biopsy site (I needed an extra shot of local anesthetic) and then stuck a giant needle in my breast while keeping an eye on everything with the ultrasound.
When they grab a tissue sample, the biopsy needle makes a sound just like a stapler. A little bit stressful but honestly not too bad. They also placed a tiny piece of metal in the lump so we could continue to track it in the future through mammography.
Afterward, they bandaged me up, gave me an ice pack, and told me to take it easy for the afternoon. The part I didn’t prepare for was that I wasn’t supposed to lift things — not even a gallon of milk — and I had my work bag with me 😬
So I carried my bag on my left side and headed to my apartment to rest and ice the biopsy site. A couple days later, a nurse called me and let me know the result of my biopsy. The lump was benign, but I should keep an eye on it and call them if it got any bigger.
I’ve got a little scar and a lump in my breast, but I’m fine. It was scary! But I’m fine now. I was really afraid to go see the doctor, but I’m glad that I did. The isolation and the fear of the unknown were terrible. So anyway...
If you’re a young person with a lump in your breast, call the doctor! Not because you should be scared, but because you *are* scared, and you deserve to know what you’re dealing with. You aren’t the only person you know who this has happened to. You’re not alone in this.
And if you need someone to talk to and/or to help you call the doctor, PLEASE @ me. I hope this helps!
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