Here's the beginning...

I had not gone for a mammogram for about 3 years. My doctor's practice had moved, and somehow my name had fallen through the cracks (I assume) since I never got a reminder card. I was busy, no big deal. But around the first of the year, I figured I'd better get back on schedule so I got an appt. for March to do my annual exam and mammogram.

As far as I know, that mammo was fine. They told me to come back in six months, as this March picture would be my new baseline and they would want to check for any changes in that time. If all was the same, I would be back on an annual schedule.

So, September 11, I went for that six-month follow-up. They took umpteen pictures and came back and took more. Of course, you know something is going on and you have to keep sitting in the hall in those ridiculous capelet things, reading trashy magazines and waiting with all the other nervous ladies in ridiculous capelet things.

Finally, they asked me to come over to the ultrasound room and started in on my there. It was all focusing on my left breast--the biggie. When #3 was finishing up her nursing career, she focused entirely on the left side. #2 had also favored the left side, but I hadn't given up the right entirely at that point. The left side also had mastitis with #2. It's the work horse, the power house, the one that drags my bra strap down 648 times per day.

The ultrasound showed a "spot" that they couldn't define and they recommended a needle biopsy at the breast center. They would leave a titanium clip in the mark the spot for any future return. The soonest they could get me in was the next Thursday, seven days later.

Soooooo, off I went. At first, the technicians could find nothing! Yipee! I thought. But, of course, they had to bring in the doctor to confirm the missing spot. She found it, pretty quickly, actually, but it was a little tricky.

A breast biopsy isn't very fun, but not terribly painful. A little like being shot with a tiny, little spear-gun. There's even a nasty metallic gun-clicking noise that they warn you about right before, so you don't leap off the table like a tuna!

That was on a Thursday morning, so the results wouldn't be back before the weekend.

The good part was that the doctor was "horsey". We talked horses the whole time and at the end, I told her thanks (??) and that I sincerely hoped I would never, ever see her again...