My Cancer Story: Biopsy #2

If you haven’t yet read the previous posts about my cancer journey, you can start from the beginning right here.

I found out on Friday, August 7 that I needed a second biopsy on my right breast.  It was scheduled for Monday at 7:00 am so now my thoughts shifted to making it through the weekend.  My daughter’s 9th birthday party was Sunday afternoon, and that was a good thing and a bad thing.  The good thing was that it was an opportunity to be surrounded by friends and hear all of their encouraging words, but the bad thing was that in kind of put a damper on the party (from my perspective, not hers) and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I normally would have.  Thankfully, the party was a success and really did help me get my mind off of everything for an afternoon.  After the party, the girls went home with my parents to spend the night since we had the biopsy the following morning.

We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 so I think we woke up around 5:00 am.  In the car on the way, I took a Xanax that the doctor had prescribed.  Apparently this type of biopsy is a much more difficult experience than the one I had already been through.  For this one, I would have to lay on a table on my stomach with my arms above my head without moving even a centimeter for over an hour because I would be inside the MRI machine the whole time.  All the while, the radiologist would be sticking a huge needle in my breast and extracting tissue samples.  It was difficult.  By the time we were done, I had just reached the point where I thought I could not stay still for another second.  The hardest part was not the needle (although it did hurt), but laying on my stomach with my arms over my head for so long without moving.  My shoulders were burning so bad!  I definitely needed the Xanax for that one!

When we were done, the nurse again placed pressure on the hole for 10 minutes and then applied steri-strips which stayed on for about a week.  I honestly don’t remember what happened the rest of this day.  I have a vague recollection of going to pick up the girls from my parents’ house, so we must have done that and gone home.  I do remember that my attitude at this time was more positive than it had been for a while, probably due to the Xanax!  I knew I wouldn’t get the results the same day, but I was hoping that I would get them before we got on a plane on Thursday to fly to Orlando for our cruise.

On Tuesday afternoon my phone rang, and it was the hospital.  Once again my heart stopped.  I had actually already prepared myself mentally for more bad news, since that was all I had received so far with my test results.  To my surprise, the surgeon actually had good news for me.  She told me that the strange spot was not cancer, but an area of abnormal cells called LCIS.  I was so relieved.  She said that at the time of my lumpectomy (if that is what I chose to do), they would just take out a larger sample of the area to look at more carefully just to be sure it was only LCIS, because apparently about 25% of the time, they end up finding other cancer in there as well.  So, while I definitely felt relieved, I now had something else to worry about.  We scheduled an appointment for Friday, August 21, to discuss the findings in more detail and make a decision about which surgery I would like to do.

I managed to push aside all of my worries and fears for 5 days while my husband I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on our kid-free cruise on the Disney Dream (trip report here).  We had an amazing time and I really didn’t worry about my cancer issues at all while on vacation.

At our appointment with the surgeon on August 21, we decided that I would have a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy.  He also told me about all of the intense screening and drug treatments that I would have to go through afterwards, for the rest of my life.  At any point in the future, I could also choose to have a mastectomy, which would reduce the future screenings considerably.

Now, to further complicate things, I need to explain what was going on with my husband’s job at this time.  Before my diagnosis on August 6, he had already accepted a new position at a hospital in another state and resigned from his current job, effective August 11.  So, his last full week of work was the week that I was diagnosed.  In addition, he was scheduled to move across the country (i.e. drive by himself with whatever he could fit in his truck) on August 18 to move into his temporary corporate apartment and begin his new job on August 24.  The original plan was for the girls and I to stay behind in Texas, hopefully for only a month or two, to wait for the house to sell.  Not only would I be going through this without him physically beside me now, but we also had to make the choice of whether to have the surgery here in Texas, or to hurry up and move and have it there.  Because we have a lot of friends and family nearby who I could lean on for help (and because moving in a hurry sounds incredibly stressful), we decided that I would have the surgery and radiation here ASAP and then hopefully we would be able to move out there and join him sometime in October or November.

Now it was time to schedule the lumpectomy.  The first opening in their schedule was for Thursday, September 3.  That wouldn’t work because the girls and I had already purchased plane tickets to fly out and spend a week with my husband, which we were all looking forward to very much.  Their next opening after that was Thursday, September 10.  I told them to book it for me and I would come back to Texas ready to get this thing over with.

Up Next:  The Lumpectomy