Friday, December 09, 2011

Don't know if I mentioned this before, but earlier this year I turned 40. Now, am not a big fan of birthdays*, and would have been perfectly happy to have let the year pass quietly by. The folks at my Health Care Provider, amazingly on the ball that they are, didn't forget.

Long Story Short: things started with a pep talk from my Primary Care Doctor,** saw me through not one, but several photo sessions on a few different machines including ultrasound, then led me to an appointment with the (gulp) breast oncologist and the eventual biopsy.

It's been a little over a week since the procedure and, honestly, I still smart. On the other hand, we are all now 100% sure that the little lump that I'd so affectionately named "verstunkene Schmutz"*** isn't krebsartig, but benign.

Next week, I go back for the followup, and hopefully that's it for six months? A year? Something like that.

***

* Not because of the fear of aging or anything; just don't tend to be too celebratory in general.

** "Bev, please don't be upset; I know know your difficulties..." she started. "Difficulties" was her wonderfully diplomatic terming of my habit of going into attack mode whenever a person in a white coat even looks at them in askance. The last routine exam improved greatly with my just singing some Jobim and sobbing a little bit afterwards. Feel so badly for my doctor.

*** lousy little sh#t. The doc liked it: direct, no holes barred. Of course, Later found out that she's a fellow former Buffalonian. That sort of cutting through the BS is kind of a regional characteristic.

2 comments:

Dr Bob said...

That's GOOD news! B xx

Be said...

The breast surgeon, on my initial appointment with her, told me that the thing the radiologist was worried about had a couple things going for it - a.) it was small and b.) it was very uniform in shape. She said that she was 90% certain that it'd be benign, but that she needed to be 100%.

What she did to me is pretty routine, apparently. Was in the waiting room (and post op) with something like five other ladies for the same procedure. I guess that this can even be done in her office, but she was worried about my panicking and flailing if I saw what was coming. (Still panicked and flailed, but she had backup. Gosh, I really could have hurt myself.)