30th of September
My Husband wanted to attend the appointment for the breast clinic at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. He asked me on more than one occasion if I wanted him to come with me. I had scheduled my hospital appointment around my working day and after all
it was only a cyst...
So off to work for a couple of hours, attended a very cheerful and upbeat team meeting and felt quite liberated wearing jeans and my Joules bright green gilet, not normal attire but then I was off to the hospital for a 10:40 appointment.
I arrived early and went into see a GP who drew a black cross on my "lump" and then told me that I would need an ultrascan. She turned to the Health Care Assistant and said "and also a mammogram" and then retracted her words by saying "ultrasound only ............ too young for a mammogram".
I pootled down the corridor and got changed into my super cape and went into the ultrasound scan room.
http://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/cancer-information/detection-diagnosis/pages/ultrasound.aspx
As soon as he said Mammogram, something inside of me changed, I started to worry, not panic but again a niggle, I sensed something was amiss. Just couldn't put my finger on it .... actually I could and it was situated on the top of my right tit.
I sat outside the x-ray room with my super hero cape on with four other women all about ten years older than me and wearing their super hero capes and realised that not only should I have accepted my husbands offer, as I really wanted and needed him to be here holding my hand but sometimes It's OK to be scared and let you guard down.
Practical advice
Always take someone with you
The mammogram didn't hurt.
I've heard tell that if your boobies are of a bigger size, it doesn't hurt so much having them squeezed between two sheets of glass/perspex. I haven't investigated whether this is a myth or indeed a fact, but I've just written it down to look into it further tomorrow and google the heck out of it.
Everything past this point is a little vague - my memory is appalling at the best of times
I was ushered into a room to speak with a consultant who had reviewed the mammogram results and said that there was an abnormality in my right breast and that he was going to perform a needle core biopsy.
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertypes/Breast/Symptomsdiagnosis/Diagnosis/Diagnosis.aspx
I found myself lying on my back, having a little blub, trying to comprehend the enormity of what the heck was going on around me, whilst trying to engage in a perfectly normal conversation with the nurse about joining the local outdoor walking/running club which I had planned to do that evening. She explained that they would now be numbing the area with a local anaesthetic for the biopsy. A small incision was made and the sensation felt like someone stapling my chest six times.
This did not hurt but I think the NHS should provide a pair of headphones to drown out the sound ....
The consultant explained that it would take about 45mins to 1 hour for the results and to come back at 12:45
I arrived at 12:45 and was walked into the consultants room. I felt like I was going for a job interview as there was a woman stood directly behind him and she was introduced as Sue, a Breast Care Nurse ... (alarm bells)
And then he said ..
"There's no easy way of saying this ..... You have breast cancer"
Blub blub
