It's been a busy week. Some normality and some surrealism. I've done a bit of work and had some lovely social times with family and friends and felt buoyed up by the love, warmth and kindness of all those I've told about my breast lump.
As expected, the breast lump I talked about in my previous blogs is malignant and will have to come out, come what may. I'm lucky that it is a cancer which is fed by oestrogen (the most common kind of breast tumour) and is likely to respond well to treatment. I was given the choice, do I want to avoid radiotherapy and just have a mastectomy (and possible reconstruction) and hormone treatment? If I went down this route I reckon I could have a very beautiful looking breast (I certainly wouldn't want them to match it with my 61 year old one on the other side). Alternatively I could just have a lumpectomy, hormone treatment and radiotherapy (same success rate as the mastectomy but for me this less drastic change to my body might be less to deal with emotionally once out the other side. I am opting for the latter.
After the Breast Surgeon had confirmed that the lump in my breast was malignant, he carried out an examination and found a second lump. I'd been prepared for bad news but whilst this was unexpected I didn't burst into tears (well not right then, I did cry when I was talking about other things to the kindly Clinical Nurse Specialist in my 'de-briefing session' afterwards). In fact I didn't really process this new revelation, well at least not that day, and when I talked about my appointment with people afterwards I entirely forgot about this.
Something hung around in the back of my mind, so when I received a phone call the following day to invite me back for a further ultrasound appointment I kind of remembered why. Everything shifts so quickly. and called the Clinical Nurse Specialist to find out what it was about. "The surgeon asked for you to have an ultrasound, to check out a benign lump" she said. They're very good at giving you information in bite sized chunks. She went on to explain that if it was a problem I'd have another biopsy to check it out. A relative of mine put my thoughts into words very aptly "daunting it's all so fast but weirdly reassuring at the same time?!"
It's all done now. The radiographer checked my whole breast. She showed me what the second lump looked like and how it was different from the first. Good news, the second lump was a fatty lump (lipoma). Nothing else to see!
I'm so lucky, I celebrated with family afterwards. Who'd have thought?
If you fancy making Lemon sugar cube scones from Delicious Magazine, here's the link: ww.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/lemon-sugar-cube-scones/
