Early September 2017 - "It feels like a cyst"

I ended up leaving it nearly two months after the initial discovery of the lump in my left breast, I know in hindsight that was stupid but I was busy with life that I had somehow let it drop to the bottom of my list of priorities - you'll learn through this blog that I'm pretty rubbish at putting myself first, instead I look out for everyone else.

In early September 2017, I had an appointment at the GP's regarding my follow up Vitamin D blood tests - I'm one of those individuals who just doesn't seem to retain enough Vitamin D in my body.  I'd only found out at the beginning of the year that my Vitamin D levels were through the floor as I'd been feeling down, achy and very tired in general. I put it down to just a stressful life at first but it was nice in a way to know that the reason I was feeling as I did was due to a lack of sunlight in this beautiful country I call home!

Try not to worry

Whilst at the GP's I mentioned the lump in my left breast, the female GP had a feel of it along with checking under my arm and along my shoulder for any other potential lumps i.e. raised lymph nodes. The GP said that she couldn't feel any raised lymph nodes and that the lump felt like a cyst, but just to be on the safe side she would send me on the 2 week fast track to the breast screening clinic at St James' Hospital, Leeds. As I left the room she tried to reassure me by saying “try not to worry, 90% of all lumps screened at the hospital turn out to be due to a benign reason.”

I cannot explain it even to this day, that I always had this gut feeling that the lump I had felt wasn't benign and that it wasn't a cyst. It just never felt like the previous cyst that I'd had which I could at least move and it felt a bit “spongey”. This lump although a little moveable in places, felt much more firm.

I was in the middle of a site visit (I'm a H&S Adviser for a construction company) when I got a call the following day from the appointments team at the hospital with a date to attend the Breast Screening Clinic.  Not the ideal place to have a conversation about my breast as you can imagine!  My GP had noted on her email to them that I was going on holiday in a couple of days so they wanted to get me booked in. It ended up with my appointment being booked for 25 September – 2 days after returning from my holiday in Crete.

Needless to say, despite trying to put the breast screening appointment to the back of my mind, I still couldn't shake the niggling feeling that the lump in my breast was something more than a cyst.

A few days later we flew out to Crete and although we had a great time on our holiday, I really struggled to relax and was forever poking and proding the lump in my breast, fearing what the screening results would tell me.  If I'm being honest, I think I knew during that holiday that I may be looking at a cancerous lump as I just couldn't shake the feeling that it was something sinister.
I've heard numerous times from people that "you know your own body" and I think for us this is very true.