Next step was the biopsy. As it turns out, there were four "spots" that they were concerned about, and the nurse thought they would biopsy two. The next appointment was in one week (a Thursday). So I (and my worried husband) spent a week googling biopsies and breast tumors. What we read was encouraging - 4 out of 5 biopsies are negative (meaning not cancerous), most lumps in women under 40 are benign, and even better, having multiple lumps makes it more likely that they are benign....so I was probably fine.
So I went into the biopsy having pretty much convinced myself that it would be negative. Aris came with me for moral support even though I told him there was no point since he couldn't be in the room with me when they were doing the biopsy. But caring person that he is, he took the afternoon off (without pay) to be there, which I was ultimately very grateful for.
The procedure itself wasn't particularly fun, but it wasn't very painful either. They numb the skin, so they only thing I felt was a lot of pressure, especially when the (huge) needle was going in and the samples were being extracted. It was also a bit disconcerting (and, honestly, nauseating) to see the needle going into the dark spot on the ultrasound. Eventually I just closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was just resting with my arm awkwardly over my head. They also placed a titanium "clip" in both biopsy sites for future reference. And they did a mammogram after the procedure to get a "picture" of where the clip is. Luckily, they don't do as much compression during that mammogram, so it didn't hurt much either.
The doctor said he would speak to my husband and I after the mammogram was done. I knew I probably wouldn't get the results until Monday, so I had no idea what he wanted to talk about. I was surprised after the biopsy how shaky I was. My hands and my knees were both really shaky. We sat down with the doctor, and first he said how well I'd done. Really I'd just laid still and didn't cry or scream, but I guess that was better than some other patients.
Then he told us that he strongly suspected that my biopsy would be positive...wait, what? That can't be right. I told him what we'd read, and he said that all of that was normally true, but looking at my ultrasounds, he was fairly certain that it was cancer. He could be wrong, he wasn't God, blah blah blah, but it didn't look like anything else it could be. Aris, being who he is, wanted to know a number - was it 50/50, 70/30, what were our odds here? The doctor said that in his opinion, there was over a 90% chance that I had breast cancer. Well, fuck. That's not what you want to hear.
Well, at least we were prepared for the results. I figured I should prepare my family and coworkers, so I told them that there was a good chance that I had breast cancer. Fun times for everyone.
And then I waited...but luckily(?) I didn't have to wait as long as I thought. Around 5:30 on Friday, January 16, I got the news that no one wants to hear - I have cancer. Invasive ductal carcinoma, grade 2 to be exact. And at this point, that's about all I know. There are more pathology results to come, which will affect my treatment. And lots more tests to come...probably an MRI, maybe a lymph node biopsy, bone scan, genetic testing, and probably more.
So it's going to be a long road ahead. As I told my mom, I don't think this will kill me, but it's going to be really shitty. At this point, the only thing I really care about is being able to be here to raise my daughter and this whole experience not scarring her for life.
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