My second mammogram

The day after my triumphant first mammogram, I was driving home from work and I saw I had a message on my cell phone. A nurse from the Breast Center at Westhealth called to let me know there was an abnormality on my initial mammogram and I needed to make an appointment for a follow up. It was after business hours so I couldn't call them back until the next day. Yep, it was confirmed, the radiologist wanted to take some extra views. Hmmm. Must have been an artifact. Or maybe they were blurry. Not too worried, I scheduled my follow up for the following Monday, March 7.

The technician at Westhealth showed me my mammogram films and pointed out a teeny tiny area of even teenier tinier calcifications in the right breast. That was what the radiologist was concerned about and they needed more views of that region. Like my first mammogram the week before, I had to fill out a questionnaire: Do you smoke? Drink? Have you been pregnant? When? Last period? First period? Mother with breast or ovarian cancer? Sister? Grandma? Aunt? Ha ha... Like I said, I have none of the risk factors.

If you thought my first mammogram was fun, you should have been there for the second. This time, the gown wasn't heated AND they took like 10 views, including a couple of magnified views that really smashed my boob. Funny, I never looked at them in that position because I thought it was undignified and I didn't want to embarrass them.

After I got dressed, the radiologist called me into her viewing room. That's weird, I thought. I've never spoken to a radiologist in person before. She introduced herself and was super nice and explained that the area of calcification was suspicious, not necessarily cancer, but could be precancerous or early cancer, or nothing, or... honestly, I didn't hear much of what she said after the word CANCER. I was truly surprised by the whole thing. As she kept talking, I began to realize that the story was not over. I needed a biopsy. Huh? Me? She explained that I was a good candidate for the less invasive stereotactic biopsy (rather than a surgical biopsy). She described the procedure, where I would lie down on a special table that had a hole cut in it for my boob to hang down. They would use special mammography machines to localize the lesion, and then inject a local anesthetic, then take several core biopsies. Then they would place a little clip into my breast to mark the area and I would get yet another mammogram afterwards. The procedure would take about 90 minutes start to finish and no real hurry but don't wait for months or anything. I was still back at Huh? Me? Biopsy? I was so thrown for a loop that I didn't even known what questions to ask. I scheduled the procedure for two weeks out, March 21, as I needed the day off of work and the following Monday I was going to be skiing.

I called my partner Lisa, who immediately wanted to vomit. Then she Googled "breast calcifications" and scared herself even more. I still didn't know what to think, so I didn't. Think, that is.