25 September - Breast Screening Day

Well it was finally here, 25 September, breast screening day at the hospital and Gary my husband had come along with me. Gary is the total opposite of me – he is so laid back and very rarely lets anything phase him, in fact I often tell people that he is almost “horizontal” he's that laid back and with him the rhetorical glass is most definitely half full...especially if it contains real ale!

I was surprised at how many people were in the breast screening clinic and not all of them were women. It's a strange place to be – its very busy but as you scan around the room there are ladies of all ages from late teens to well into their elderly years and nearly everyone had someone there as moral support. For me there was a mixture of worried and blank faces as I looked around the room and I wondered what had brought other ladies to the screening room – were they like me? Had they found a lump? Were they having routine mammograms? Were they having follow up appointments? My train of thought as well as listening to Gary try to pacify me was interrupted by a nurse calling out my name.

Deep breath - let's get the screening done

I was taken into a room where a Breast Registrar and another nurse were waiting for me. The Breast Registrar asked me lots of questions about the lump – how long had it been there? How did it feel? Did it cause me pain? Had I had any nipple discharge? Etc. etc. before asking to examine me. She placed a biro “X” on the lump and said that she thought it was a benign condition and the ultrasound would more than likely show a cyst or fatty tissue – she didn't seem too concerned. She said that because I was under 40 that I wouldn't have a mammogram as the breast tissue would be too dense to show anything of real value and that was it, consultation over and back into the waiting room and still not feeling reassured by her evaluation.

I wasn't sat long before I was called into the ultrasound room. I laid on the bed and the radiographer started scanning the lump area....and then under my arm. I lay there thinking, "it's OK Joanne, she's just being thorough" but she seemed to linger in the area for far longer than I was happy with. The radiographer then announced that she was going to go and request a mammogram and that's when alarm bells started ringing in my head and my heart starting racing "shit!!" was my initial thought – they've found something other than a cyst.

I was then quickly taken into a different room to have my breast squashed between two plates of the mammogram machine. Unlike other female relatives, I wasn't granted the gift of large breasts but I had enough for the plates still to leave lovely pink coloured imprints on my breast! (Can I just say that mammograms aren't painful...they're just a bit uncomfortable so please if you ever have to have one - go!).

The radiographer then announced that I was to go back into the waiting room and wait to be called in for a biopsy doing. This is when my heart began to sink....I knew that they had found something suspicious....it wasn't just a cyst.

Gary was as optimistic as ever as I returned to my seat at the side of him but I said to him that I just knew I was going to receive some bad news. Minutes later I was called into the biopsy room and was met with 2 nurses. I will never forget that moment. The lead radiographer quite matter of fact said -  “we have found a suspicious area so we will be doing 4 punch biopsies of the lump for which we will give you a local anaesthetic, we will be draining the cyst covering the lump and taking a sample of lymph fluid from under your arm – is that OK?” And that is exactly how she said it! I remember thinking “shit! They think it's cancerous – I'm 39 and I'm being tested for cancer! I need Gary in here to take this all in”.

I was promptly placed onto the bed and a needle was placed into the cyst and the fluid drained off it – it looked like black tea which is a classic colour of a cyst apparently. I was then given a local anaesthetic in the breast around the lump area and the first punch biopsy was done followed by the other nurse quickly standing over me with the full weight of her body behind her to stem the bleeding. Apparently they had hit an artery!! I remember thinking to myself “well I'm in the right place if they can't stop it bleeding!” I was told “you will have severe bruising and with each biopsy it will make it worse – are you OK to carry on?” My initial thought was “do I have a choice?” but I am a tough cookie so I said “yeah carry on, do whatever you need to do.” So the same thing happened with each biopsy taken - I ended up with severe bruising for weeks after, so much so I looked like I'd been in a fight.

Once the biopsy was done, I was then told that they would drain a sample of lymph fluid from under my arm for testing. This felt similar to the draining of the breast cyst although this time the fluid was a pink colour.

The nurse then placed a large wad of dressing over the biopsy site and told me to return to the waiting room to see the Breast Registrar again. I remember getting up and feeling a little dizzy, not unusual for me after laying down for a while but I was desperate for a drink my mouth was that dry! One of the nurses came over when I was sat in the waiting room to ask if I would “like a cup of tea and a biscuit as I'd lost a fair amount of blood when the biopsies were taken.” The first sip of that tea was like nectar let me tell you!

It's what?

After what felt like an eternity I was called back in to see the Breast Registrar but this time Gary came with me. I remember being greeted by the Breast Registrar when I went in as her demeanour this time was very different from when I had met her an hour or so earlier. She looked quite nervous and kept licking her lips like her mouth was dry...classic nervous behaviour I thought. She said that whilst the tests had found a large cyst (it measured 40mm x 20mm) which was what we had all been feeling, the tests also showed that there was a highly suspicious lump which was laying directly underneath the cyst they had drained. I asked her straight out “are you telling me that I am 39 and that I have breast cancer?” In that moment I couldn't believe the words that I had uttered out loud. It felt in that moment like the room was closing in on me, that the air was being sucked out of the room. The Breast Registrar swallowed and with a dry mouth said “we will have to wait until the results of the biopsy come through before we can confirm anything.” I remember reaching for Gary's hand for comfort.

The Breast Registrar went on to explain that the suspicious lump measured approximately 21mm x 19mm and on the scoring system of 1 being benign and 5 being definitely cancerous, that the mammogram scored it as a 3 and the ultrasound scored it as a 4. In my head that was all the confirmation I needed. I was 39 and being diagnosed with breast cancer – how the hell did that happen??

Is this really happening?

As I left the Breast Screening Clinic with Gary I remember just feeling awash with emotion - disbelief, anger, fear and uncertainty and I kept saying to myself in my head "this can't be happening, this can't be real." It was a very strange car journey home that afternoon and I remember thinking that I needed to tell my brother, my auntie and my mother in law what the outcome of the screening was.
I'm not sure how I managed the phone calls to my brother and my mother in law without crying down the phone but I did, I managed to utter the words out "they think it's a cancerous lump" without shedding any tears.  It wasn't until I spoke to my auntie that I couldn't hold back the tears anymore, I couldn't stop myself from crying over the phone "they think it's a cancerous lump, what the hell am I going to do??"  Why talking to my auntie caused the emotion to spill out, I don't know, other than my auntie was my mum's sister and I lost my own mum to brain cancer when she was just 49 (and I was only 17). 

I couldn't believe that cancer was possibly going to affect my family once again......