Patchy, Persistent, What?

Feeling great this summer and keeping busy with four separate visitors, a demanding work season, sunny Seattle days, and a new sweet-as-hell kitten—makes for a good formula for not allowing cancer to fill my mind. Also, I feel like I was robbed of the winter which has made me want to take advantage of every fun moment of the spring, summer, fall....

Just as I’m pulling out of the cancerhood parking lot, I hit a bump. Nothing too serious (I think/hope), but still concerning. It’s been 4 months since I ended radiation and 8 months since driving to the depths of hell chemo.

I recently noticed some sporadic pain to my breast so I called the doctor’s office to ask when I needed my first recheck/follow-up appointment post-treatment, and of course they tried to get me to come in for an appointment. But, knowing that they’d likely just look me over, order a scan of some sort, then ask me to come back with the results, I decided they should just order the scan now then I’ll come in with the results—all in one visit. (Seriously—I can’t tell if they just do things because they are simply following protocol without concern for individual patient’s ability/need/common sense, or they just want to bill my insurance for an additional visit even though they would see very little into the situation without a scan and therefore fail in offering a prognosis and plan, or both). Luckily, they conceded. The doctor ordered a breast MRI and I had it last week.

Following the request of the office staff, my appointment to get those results was made for the following week—meaning I would wait about a week for the results of the MRI. Yeah, I can wait, right? After all, it’s nothing and I’ll just put it out of my head until then. There are lots of other things to think about and deal with. Well, apparently I’m just human after all because after a few days of guessing, worrying about, and dreading the results, I realized I didn’t want to and shouldn’t have to wait. They know my results, why shouldn’t I? Even though I couldn’t come in until the following week, doesn’t mean I should have to wait to know the findings. The long and the short of it is, I called the ordering doctor’s office again three or four days after the MRI to get the results, they hadn’t been read yet (no rush, right?—it’s only my body), so I pushed to get it read but didn’t hear from the doctor who ordered it so I called the imaging center directly and requested they fax the results to my work’s office—and they did.

The problem with having an MRI report without the advantage of the doctor to interpret it is a bit dangerous. I can understand just enough to know that the breast tissue (seen without “enhancement”) is consistent with what’s expected given all it has undergone, but not enough to know how serious the “patchy persistent enhancement” seen in my pectoral muscle and chest wall are. The report reads that further scans are recommended. Okay, now I’m scared.

I’ve had these results all weekend without a call back from the doctor or nurse practitioner (yes, it’s a self-created problem, I see that) so it’s been very hard to not worry. Take it easy, Amy, it’s probably normal, I tell myself. No, don’t look it up online, that’s the worst thing to do. Okay, maybe just look at online medical journals and not at any blogs. Oh, damn—nope, that made it worse. Stupid internet. This is how people end up boarding up their house and wearing aluminum foil hats.

Thankfully, I have a kind friend at work who gave her shoulder and a supporting brother who offered humor and distractions, and said, “I’d probably do the same thing” which helped a ton.  Thank you guys for not telling me “Don’t worry about it.” or “Stop looking online!” because when you’re in this, you just can’t help it and I’d say that’s the last thing someone in this situation wants to hear. My fabulous husband kept me busy this weekend and my dear friend “Emma” joined me for dinner, wine, and coconut milk ice cream—which should be the cure for any ailment.

I made it through the weekend and will get the doctor’s decoding of the results this week. More to come.