No news is...just no news. And I finally have a moment.
I promised updates.
And here is where I break that promise.
As I surmised, the MRI blob in Parus minor required some more ogling so the doc sent me for the ultrasound of that. The doctor in charge of that could barely visualize it and said straight out that if I didn't have cancer in Parus major (I'm paraphrasing here), he would say let's ignore it for now and see if it turns into anything. There's a good chance that it is simply an intramammary lymph node: these exist, and are generally nothing to worry about. But since I'm getting treatment anyway, we should biopsy and see if it IS anything of note.
A few things:
- again, it's probably nothing. Right now it's rated at BIRADS 4a, which has less than 10% chance of malignancy, and the radiologist said he'd call it a 3 ("lets just keep an eye on it") if I didn't have a known cancer.
- If it is a Big Hairy Deal, there's nothing to say it is the same cancer. They are independent annoyances.
- It may also be something just weird that needs to be removed anyway, even if not cancer. Still again, if I'm having surgery anyway, let's do it all at once.
I'm waiting to schedule the next biopsy, which should happen soon. Results will take another week once it happens...and THEN we can figure out surgery. It may not give us a lot more information, but it may take some options off the table.
I'll talk more about options another day.
First though, let's talk about today, the day when I finally lost my shit!
I've generally approached this with humor and an attitude of just get information and get shit done. But I'm also still trying to help run our company and I counted, and I've had 12 different appointments in the last month (almost all of which Stephen has had to come to with me). It's a lot. And I was rolling with it pretty well until today.
Today was an appointment to remove my hormone-based birth control (remember, the tumor eats hormones for breakfast so we want that thing out ASAP). The appointment I got last time took at least an hour of legwork on my part, plus some help from the Nurse Navigator and was made over two weeks out. Today I toddled in today to find the nurse practitioner was unable to remove said device. She tried and tried, but could not do it. So she had to refer me to an MD in a different department, who of course couldn't see me to day (in the NP's defense, she did see if she could get me in today!). So I was relegated to yet MORE waiting.
The tumor is not aggressive. It is growing slowly. But I am eager to just get this done and make progress, so this was a bit of a kick in the gut. And then when the nurse assistant came in to inform me that he thought they could "probably make it happen this month,"...I kind of lost my shit on him. Today is only the 4th of the month. Wtf.
I didn't intend to lose my shit...it was just finally a bit too much.
But friends, I must have made an impression because the scheduler called within an hour of me getting home, and I have an appointment next week.
Shoutout to Anna who immediately jumped in with offers to assist with calling around for appointments and who made time for me to just go burn of some steam this afternoon in the silks which I'll say prevented total meltdown catastrophe. Shout out to Tori as well for being my scream into the void friend. That text was pretty much all I could manage at that moment in time. Love to everyone who got meltdown texts from me today. I'm doing better now.