WEEK 2: Biopsies! Biopsies! Biopsies!

My taxi driver making calls while driving me to appointments

Nothing like a full frontal MRI to jump start your Monday morning (eat your heart out Starbucks, who needs caffeine?!).....Follow me again, if you can....shoved my naked upper body, face down into a tube the size of a PVC pipe..."Would you like some headphones on a Pandora station?" Wow really...hmmmm..."Oh yes, a little Michael Buble please, I just love him and that great old jazz style of his".....headphones on...."Oh my God, take those off! Take those off!" Extremely claustophobic....hyperventilating...NOT ready....silence in the room....breathe....."OK, push me in".....45 minutes later & finally finished with that lovely (and deafening) experience ....sweating....tears rolling down my cheeks....deep breath....OK, done. MOVING ON. Appointment with a breast surgeon who sees the lump by just looking at my breast....performed a needle biopsy in office (damn that hurt!)....back to radiology.....ultrasound needle biopsy....another mammogram....drove home and hid under the covers.

WEEK 1: Appointments! Appointments! Appointments!

OK, follow me if you can....Drove back from my mom's house in Monterey on Monday....called several doctors on the way back to Ventura to get in to have someone feel this thing....got an appointment with a Doc in Ventura - IN 3 WEEKS! (forget that).....got another appointment with my old GYN in Santa Barbara for the next day (went with that).....had a breast exam (yes she found the lump immediately) ....pap smear.... cervical ultrasound....breast-pump-thingamajig-test (quite unpleasant)...walked down the street to radiology for a breast ultrasound and cone mammogram (yes, there is such a thing)....walked across the street to the hospital for cancer screening blood tests (with the groovy dude in the Hawaiian shirt who shared my birthday)...celebrated Thanksgiving.....celebrated my birthday in a very quiet way....made an appointment for a contrast MRI (that means dye) for the next week. Whew!

Day 1 - Finding a lump...

My iPhone calendar

Well, this is certainly a date I will never forget. Sitting in my mom's living room late on a Sunday night texting and congratulating a friend who was in Arizona competing in her 2nd Ironman race. An hour before the dreaded lump was discovered, I told Hil how impressed I was with our friend and that I too wanted to be "healthy like her." Then, I had a random itch in my left breast and for some reason I went right to it and felt the lump - GASP! There it was....again. I knew it was cancer. I just knew.