I wasn’t even ‘checking’, I wasn’t even aware I was touching my breasts one night while watching television when I felt something that resembled a frozen pea under the skin in my right breast.

My mind wandered…and wandered due to a having a family history. I called my husband to come over and have a feel, he was equally as concerned and I quite literally made an appt for the next day to go to the doctors. The doctor had a good feel around, informed me that most of the time it’s a cyst but good to be sure just in case. I got sent off for an ultrasound and mammogram a few days later. 

THE ULTRASOUND & MAMMOGRAM

It was the day before the AFL grand final and it was a long weekend in 2019. As I lay there getting the ultrasound I expressed concern to the woman as she did it. She was so kind, she was doing everything she could to try to comfort me as she scanned my breast. She told me that it appeared to be nothing, but there was a little section of it that they would probably want to biopsy as it had blurred edges. She wasn’t meant to tell me anything but also didn’t want me waiting freaking out over the long weekend. It was a very kind gesture which I appreciated even though I knew it wasn’t certain.

She then started scanning my armpit, lymph node location and her entire demeanour changed. She no longer looked me in the eye, she was doing those big gulps. I was lying there watching her reactions silently freaking out. I looked on the screen myself and swear I saw something where she was looking. Clearly I am no expert here, but I really believe I saw something.

She put the machine down and said she had to leave the room to go check something… I lost it. Silent tears streaming down my face on by one, they kept coming… I was freaking out

As she re-entered the room she was very matter of fact and said “ ok, that’s it, now make an appt for your doc and he will go over the results early next week”. She saw my tears, she briefly looked me in the eye and didn’t comfort me at all. I knew something was wrong, if there was any way that she could have comforted me, she would have. Yet she didn’t…f**k

THE RESULTS

That long weekend was torture. Unnecessarily worrying myself wasn’t going to help the situation at all as I didn’t know at this stage that it was cancer, so I decided to distract myself to get my way through the weekend.

So I did just that, I took the kids down to the beach, we had chips and ice cream and walked around in the sun. It was lovely. As lovely as it could be with this weighing me down on the inside. 

The day came for getting the results, the report said there was nothing in my lymph nodes but the breast lesion was suspicious so they wanted to biopsy it. So far, it was going how the ultrasound woman had said, which did bring me some comfort. I was so confused about there not being anything in my lymph nodes, in fact I mentioned it to the doctor and got him to feel around. He showed me the report and what it said and he wasn’t able to feel anything himself either.

THE BIOPSY

I must admit I was nervous going into this one, not knowing what to expect and knowing I was one step closer to knowing what was going on was scary. I wanted to know but only if it was good news…

The women in there were amazing, making me as comfortable as I could be. They numbed the area by giving me a local, then inserted the biopsy needle in. I decided to watch it on the screen which was a little bizarre but I’m glad I did.

It wasn’t painful as such, more uncomfortable and unpleasant, but when they finished I still couldn’t shake the idea of this lymph node confusion. So I told them about my gut feeling from the woman who scanned me and how the report came back clear. I asked if they would mind checking the armpit again for me while the machine was here.. they did. “oh my gosh I’m so sorry I have no idea how this has happened but you're right, there is something here”. My heart sank but I knew deep down something was there. They were able to biopsy my armpit while I was there.

Now to wait again for the results.