Pancakes

Mammogram day, so pancakes for breakfast.

Among the less obvious benefits of being generously endowed is that mammograms don't hurt -- they're barely even uncomfortable.  But, I was a little apprehensive about how my right breast would feel during the squishitude.  Three surgeries might have made it a little... um... sensitive.  In the end, it made no difference at all.  Four images -- two on each side -- and I was out the door.

Next stop, a reunion with The Dutchman to learn the results.  Six more sleeps...

Here, Not There

Before hitting the road for PMH, the BFF and I had a little fun with a Sharpie.  I want Team Ta-ta in a good mood, today!

We arrived right on time at 7AM, which is ugh-worthy on an average day, much less the day of surgery.  I had expected to sleep badly, but woke up with the nose hose in place, and feeling rested.  It was a busy day on the Short Stay Unit, so there was no room at the inn.  We decamped to the visitors’ waiting room and unpacked the BlackBerrys.  A couple of working girls on a tear.

At 9AM, we relocated to the third floor. The BFF was summarily hauled into a separate waiting room, and I cooled my heels within shouting distance – but not sight – of her.  I refrained from shouting.  Nearly an hour later, still in the same hallway, it was revealed that my imaging (i.e. original mammogram films) were nowhere to be found, and they ushered me in for a fresh mamwich.  Now things were moving, if only slowly.

Over the course of the next two hours, I had three wires installed:  one under mammography, a second – and, unexpectedly, third – under ultrasound.  It turns out I would have been a standout in Victorian England:  I swoon with the best of them.  Hence, the need to be prone after the first wire went in.  Number two was perfectly positioned – and then didn’t deploy properly.  So, we went for three.  By the time I got outta the breast imaging department, I looked like a high tech porcupine.

Back upstairs, there was still no available room, so we hunkered down again in the visitors’ lounge.  1PM comes and goes.  1:30 comes and goes.  When does my gurney arrive?  Two o’clock comes, goes.  Three.  Finally, someone checks out of the hotel PMH, and a room comes available.  At almost 4PM, it’s go time.

Off to the surgical suite, where things move quickly.  IVs are installed, the Grim Sleeper and The Dutchman come by, admire Rita’s handwriting, and I’m transferred to the OR.  Five minutes later – as far as I know – it’s 5:10, and there’s a mambo rhythm beeping from the monitor above my head.  I’m awake, the surgery was successful, and I have “extra beats”.  Heart beats.  In my drug-addled state, more seems better than fewer, but they need to check that out.  So, I get a 12-lead ECG, which I apparently pass, as I’m released back upstairs for the final time, but not before snagging a couple of jumped-up Tylenol 3s for the road.

It’s 6PM, and I can’t go home until I’ve been to the bathroom without help, and had a little nosh and kept it down.  Truly, the bar is set at the three-year-old level!  I’m so hungry I could eat furniture, but, oddly, nothing on the hospital tray is appetizing, except a pear and a container of what appears to be grape Koolaid.  So, I knock those back, drink a half-litre of water and wait.

And the angels sang.

The sports bra goes on, the departing paperwork is delivered, and I’m off home with the BFF.  It’s nearly nine o’clock.  Five months after the screening mammogram, phase one is over.

Tom Petty is a Prophet

The waiting really is the hardest part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCJEYLIBQY

The first time I waited, I didn’t even know I was doing it. After my annual physical in the summer, I was sent for a regular (AKA screening) mammogram on August 27. Been there, done that. I remember thinking how lucky I am to have large breasts, as the process is only uncomfortable for me, not painful, as it can be for smaller-breasted women. In was in and out, and never gave it another thought.

When I got the call from my doc to request a magnification mammogram and ultrasound, I wasn’t freaked. I just went back and started over. This time, just the right side: two views. September 28.

I knew it was microcalcifications they were looking at, and I saw the film on the light board while the technician was out of the room. A yellow grease pencil had drawn an untidy box around the cells in question. A constellation of tiny white specs. Not a lump. And not uncommon. Only 15% of occurrences turn out to be malignant. Pretty good odds, I thought. Don’t worry, ‘til there’s cause.

Then off to the ultrasound. I’ve had those, too: cold gel and the magic wand. Not the magic wand at the airport (the one that picks up the underwires and the rivets in your jeans), but a wand nonetheless. You always know when the technicians have found what they want to look at, as they go over and over and over it again. And when your technician elects to call a friend, it’s hard to disguise that there’s something going on. I think it’s fair to say that when health professionals tell you not to be concerned, it’s time to get your worry on. But, who’s got time for that? Two days after my second tit sandwich in a month, I flew off to Turkey with instructions for the doc to call me as soon as the results came back.

Ya know, it doesn’t matter how busy you are – and I was some busy in Istanbul – when you’re waiting for a phone call that’s taking its own sweet time, the clock seems to slow down, and the calendar pages don’t turn as quickly as they usually do. You’d think with the men in my recent life, I’d be better at accepting that: apparently not. But the call did come, and with it the news that I was to be scheduled for a biopsy. Shit.

After a week away, and another week after I got home, I was back at the lab naked from the waist up. This time with a South African – Christiaan Barnard of the boobs – making small talk with a swab in one hand and a needle in the other. It was never among my fantasies to hear a man with his hand on my breast say, “And now you’ll feel a little prick”, but I digress. After four or five cores (it’s hard to keep track when you’re trying not to think about the needle in your breast), the little prick left and I wobbled off to tape an ice pack inside my bra and head back to work like nothing had happened.

Two weeks ‘til the results. Shit, again.

This afternoon -- two weeks and two days later -- my doc reviewed the pathologist’s report with me. It turns out the biopsy didn’t pick up any of the microcalcifications, so the next step is either another biopsy – stereotactic, this time, so they’ll be sure to get what they came for – or an excision, which amounts to a lumpectomy. Either way, I’ll know once and for all if the atypical cells are benign or malignant. But in the meantime – until the consultation with the next in my parade of doctors (set for November 26)– more waiting.

Sing it, Tom.