The Ladies of the Lavendar Gowns

Wow, I need to get you all caught up with everything QUICKLY! I got a call today that my surgery is THIS THURSDAY! *Gulp!*

***Continued from post one:

So, the next Thursday, after much stewing about the possibility of having cancer, I went for my second mammogram. We are very lucky in this are to have the Mills Breast Cancer Institute, which is fairly new. I worked half a day, and then went over for my appointment. After waiting in the general waiting area for a few minutes, I was called back to a more private area. I was taken to a dressing room and told to undress from the waist up and put on a lavendar gown that opened in the front. I was also given some wipes to take off any deodorant I was wearing. Apparently it interferes with the mammogram.

I was then led to another room that is just for the women waiting for mammograms or other procedures. I was one of about five women there and we all had the matching lavendar gowns. I wondered why the gowns weren't pink. Isn't that the breast cancer prevention color? Pink? Anyway, it was very quiet in the room. I noticed the other women were hesitant to meet anyone else's eye and there was no talking.

I was supposed to get the mammogram and have them tell me it was nothing, get dressed, and go back to work. It didn't turn out that way. Instead, I had my mammogram and was told to go back to the waiting room and they would let me know if I needed to undergo a further sonogram. I noticed a couple of the ladies in the room with me were told they could get dressed and go. I wasn't so lucky. I was told to wait because I was indeed going to have a sonogram. Great. This didn't sound good to me.

I was taken back to a room where I was told to lie on my back on a table while the technician got things prepared. I looked up and in the panel for the fluorescent light there was a lovely beach scene to look at. It was very peaceful and it looked warm, something very welcome to me in the middle of a Midwest winter. T, the technician, put some cold gel on me, then started the sonogram. I noticed she would pause now and again and look at something on the screen, but it was angled so I couldn't see what she was doing or what she was looking at, so I looked at my beach scene and imagined I was there. *Sigh*

She finally wiped the gel off of me and told me I could go get dressed. I got my clothes out of the locker, got dressed and left.

In the next few days I got a call that, yes, there was definitely something there and I needed to come back in for a needle biopsy. It was at this point I pretty much made up my mind this was cancer. There was still the possibility that it was not, but I was almost sure it was. I was not that upset. My mother had a lumpectomy, a short time with radiation and that was it. I figured I'd do the same. I just had to get through this and eveything would be okay. If I had to, I could do this.

I went back for the biopsy on a Thursday. I remember this because it seems everything with this diagnosis has been Mondays and Thursdays. Today is Monday. they called to tell me my surgery is Thursday. Go figure.

I had the biopsy in the same room as the sonogram. Once again it was back to the private waiting room and the lavendar gown. My mother, bless her, went with me for moral support. This time the library quietness was broken by an elderly woman who told the room in general that this was her third mammogram in less than a month and if this one hurt as much as the others "they can keep it!"

They took me back to the sono room. As I entered, on the screen was a sono film with a large mass on it, about the size of a dime. I stopped in my tracks, pointed and said, "Is that me?" I must have sounded a little alarmed because they hurried to assure me that although this was my film, they had enlarged it quite a bit so they could see it. In reality my "mass" was less than a centimeter. *Phew*

Lying back on the table, I noticed my beach scene was gone, replaced by a scene of a bunch of drawn flowers. Very colorful. The problem was, each flower had a small black dot at its center about the size of a pea. To me these were too reminiscent of the black dot on my film. I wanted my beach scene back!

The female doctor, Dr. C, came in and started the procedure. She gave me two shots with very large needles. Needles in the breast are really no fun. Imagine. It hurt quite a bit, but then the area was numbed and she used the sonogram screen to find the mass. At this point I could only feel pressure, no pain, until she moved to a different spot and then--OW! They had to give me more juice to numb the pain and we continued. The actual taking of the specimen was interesting. It sounded like fingernail clippers when they snipped a portion. This was done several times and I wondered how much could be left? Maybe they'd snipped all of it out and I could be done? No such luck.

I had to wait the weekend for the results and then I had an appointment with my GP for her to go over everything with me. On Monday (again), I went in, with mom in tow, to find out what I thought I already knew. Dr. B, whom I just love, came in and sat down and said matter-of-factly, "Well, we have a problem." As in, Houston, we have a problem. I told her that was what I figured. She seemed a little surprised that I thought that, but told me I was facing surgery and possibly radiation and chemo, but we wouldn't know about either of those until after the surgery, which would most likely be a lumpectomy since they had caught my cancer so early. Okay, I figured I was prepeared for that.

To Be Continued. Next, More surprises to come