ONE of the reasons I started this blog was to hopefully help another woman find answers from my story that might apply to her situation, whether a close friend I know well, or even a stranger who might wander upon this blog site searching for answers. The latter accounts for my choice of the rather boring name of the blog which I hoped would be an easy google search pop-up for that searching woman. I was once that "google-searching woman" myself.
THAT'S WHY today, I felt like I should backtrack a little in time and share how I found my breast cancer and some events that led up to that. Many friends have asked me this question and I'm able to share and will again today, hoping it might help at least one person discern wisely. FIRST, let me say that not everyone's situation is the same and I intend this only as a prayerful tool you might use in your situation. Any research you might do on breast lumps will tell you that MOST lumps end up being benign, thankfully, and women have to find a careful balance between living in constant fear and using diligent wisdom God gives us to discern issues about our health.
(For the men friends - I apologize in advance if any of this is too awkward for you to read and you can certainly choose to opt out of today's blog.)
MY HISTORY has always been of having very dense breasts which many women have. This doesn't mean my breast were stupid, but rather compact I guess you could say, which made mammograms harder to distinguish what from what. Women with dense breasts have to be even more diligent about "knowing" their own breasts with self-exams, etc. I've not always done that especially in younger years, more hit and miss. I breast fed both my babies for a year each which is supposed to help prevent breast cancer. I battled the common fibrocystic (fluid-filled benign) breastlumps in my younger adult years which come and go during a women's cycle and can be tender and painful but not dangerous. They usually tell you to avoid caffeine which helps and eventually as I got older they weren't an issue for me anymore.
Over my middle-aged years (I can't remember when I started exactly) I continued to get mammograms and occasionally breast ultrasounds would follow when they couldn't distinguish an area due to the density. Always okay. In 2006 after my mother's ovarian cancer diagnosis, I was put back on a low dose oral contraceptive as a way of leveling off hormone levels to avoid ovarian cancer. I stayed on that for about 5 or 6 years until I took myself off. In 2007 I found two rather palpable lumps, one in each breast. They did mammograms, special view mammograms (more detailed), and an ultrasound. It was suggested that while they appeared to be benign, a needle biopsy was the only way to tell for sure. The biopsy, while no fun, is relatively simple, performed by a radiologist with the help of an ultrasound tech, with lidocaine to numb the area where you feel only pressure for the most part. The lidocaine injections are small needles and feel like bee stings at worst. The whole procedure takes about 30 minutes and you go home with icepacks for a few hours and maybe some bruising, but in light of what it can help you avoid....is NOTHING you should hesitate about out of fear. Meditating on speaking Jesus' name was always a help to me in getting through the biopsies and taking my mind off of what they were doing.
The radiologist felt by the sheer look of the specimen that it was benign but, of course, won't confirm until labs are back in about 3 days. I was relieved to find the two lumps were FIBROADENOMAS, which were solid, but benign. The radiologist and my gyno said that they were estrogen related, but usually dissolve themselves when women go through menopause. I was told that unless they changed or were bothering me, I could leave them alone, or choose to have them removed surgically. Surgical removal would have amounted to a lumpectomy-type procedure on both breasts and due to the size of the right one especially, would cause a definite indention at best. More than that, I was just so relieved and tired of all the testing, that I just wanted to move on and stop worrying about it and opted to not put myself through a surgical procedure to remove benign breast lumps which would eventually go away on their own. I did make a moderate attempt to start a natural vitamin regimen sold by my gyno for about 9 months. They were expensive and I wasn't sold on the fact that they were worth it and eventually stopped. I continued though over the next years to take OTC vitamin D3 which is supposed to be good for cancer prevention. However, I would often fall off the wagon with my daily vitamin taking, just to pick it back up again later.
In 2009, after a mammogram with new digital equipment, they found a microcalcification in the right breast. This was a little scarier, because they can often signify pre-cancerous cells forming. NOT ALWAYS, but again, YOU GUESSED IT, the only way to know for sure is a biopsy. This time though due to the small rice-size of the spot, they would have to do a stereotactic biopsy. I'd never heard of this procedure at the time, but felt like I needed to follow through with it. In a stereo, you lay on an elevated table on your stomach with your breast exposed through an opening underneath where they are compressed in a mammogram while a needle biopsy is performed. One of the hardest parts was not being able to move for about 30 minutes during the procedure. Again, I will just say this. If this procedure can help you avoid future breast cancer, then comparatively speaking, its much simpler. But I will say, it was not an easy procedure to go through and learn from my mistake - DON'T HESITATE TO SPEAK UP AND TELL THEM JUST AS SOON AS YOU NEED MORE NUMBING MEDS. Thankfully again, the results came back as more fibroadenoma cells. This brought up a new issue for me personally as to how much is too much! I openly discussed with the radiologist that while I appreciated the new digital technology that could reveal possible precancerous cells much smaller and earlier, I could not and would not want to go through a stereotactic biopsy every other year just because my breasts were prone to these issues. I'm sure that's when I began to work harder on taking my vitamins, etc. He assured me that it was uncommon for women to have frequent ongoing stereo's. I was just glad it was over and again that the results were negative. Back to regular life.
In Nov. 2010, I had a slight scare with my yearly pelvic exam coming back abnormal and followed through with some follow-up diagnostics with that. It was unnerving to say the least and tiring to have to deal with yet another issue. I had started back to school at that point and was extremely busy and wrapped up in that. It ended up being nothing, PTL, and ironically my mammogram in Nov. 2010 came back clear. I was not even called back in for the usual breast ultrasound to double-check which I'd been so used to. I just remember being thankful since the pelvic issue was on my plate at the time and I even considered it a blessing. The previous fibroadenoma lumps as well as the microcalcification spot had all been marked at time of biopsies, with tissue markers that would show up in subsequent mammograms letting radiologists know those areas had already been cleared as "ok".
SOMETIME in the first few months of 2011 I'm guessing, I began to re-feel on the large fibroadenoma lump in my right breast. This was probably more an occasional habit while in the shower to run my fingers over the lump and think about it. But I found myself doing it more and more often and questioning whether it was indeed changing size/getting bigger, whether it was just hormones causing it to swell then shrink back, or whether it was just my imagination trying to worry...paranoia. NOT wanting to run back to the doctors and very busy in life, I let it go for several months until I began to feel a bebe size lump closer to the nipple area of that same breast. That definitely felt "different", but again, I just questioned myself and postponed it for weeks until my follow-up appt. with my gyno where I would bring it up. In fact to save time off from school, I took charge and scheduled my gyno appt. in the morning, my mammogram after lunch followed by an ultrasound which I knew they would require. I've learned to ask with pleasant insistence for what I want or need instead of just taking the first thing that's offered appt.-wise, etc. ALSO, especially after being in radiography school myself for a year by this time, I did not hesitate to ask for EXTRA lidocaine from the radiologist as he proceeded with yet another biopsy one month later on three new tumor areas in that right breast.
The mammogram and ultrasound in July had shown three areas of suspicion and I was told those familiar words again, that only a biopsy could tell for sure whether they were more fibroadenomas or not. Even at this point, I felt it was probably just the same old benign lumps and I DID NOT want to rush to a biopsy, take time off clinicals, and put myself through the worry. I tried to believe God to just take it away. I was stalling, too. Finally, I decided to take my cd of my mammo and ultra to the clinic where I worked at clinicals in a hope that one of their radiologists would be so kind as so give their student a free second opinion. One doctor did, and told me he preferred to err on the side of caution with these things and recommended I follow through with the biopsy. That helped me to make my decision and I'm so glad I did! Before that I was actually thinking of taking the "watch and wait" approach for 6 months. Who knows where my cancer would be today had I done that.
As I've shared in this blog many times, I'm a Christian and believe and trust in an all-knowing loving God who is more than able to heal in many ways. I'm reminded of the old story about the man stranded on his roof top as flood waters are rising all around. A boat comes along offering him a ride to which he proclaims "No thanks, God will take care of me!" The flood waters continue to rise as a second boat comes by offering assistance to which he refuses declaring "No thanks, God will care of me!". As the waters rise even more and third boat comes by begging him to receive help and he again denies saying "God will take care of me!" The man drowns and goes to heaven where he questions God, "Why didn't you save me?", to which God answers..."Who do you think sent the three boats?"
My gyno told me when I asked years ago, that it was extremely rare for a fibroadenoma to TURN INTO cancer. In hindsight...the fibroadenoma lump being the size it was, at best, helped obscure the new cancer tumors that arose later making me question my earlier decision to leave them in. Also, I would encourage women to talk to their doctor about taking vitamin D3 regularly and be more diligient than I was. Its an easy, healthy, and inexpensive tool in your arsenal against cancer. Finally, be familiar with your own breasts and if you suspect anything out of the ordinary, get it checked out as soon as possible. We can't continue to look backward in our lives, but move forward with courage and thankfulness for a merciful, forgiving God who holds our hand through every hard thing we encounter and uses it to bring us closer to him. Hope this helps someone.
