First, the positive parts:
* In the medical world of breast cancer treatment, people consistently call me young. I had my second child after 35, and spent a year being referred to as “an older patient”, so this is nice.
* I ran into my oncologist in the elevator lobby, so I’ve already had my “what next” conversation.
In the neutral territory, they were not able to see the anomaly on ultrasound. This can be good – the MRI might have had a false positive, which are not uncommon for people with my level of complexity in their tissue.
The downside is, if we want to be sure, it would take another biopsy. To be honest, my initial reaction to that was – so? At no previous point has anyone hesitated to jab a needle in me to get a specimen.
But the trick to this one is, because it doesn’t show up on ultrasound, I’d need an MRI-guided biopsy. If you read my previous post on the MRI, you know that I did *not* enjoy the MRI. So the chances of my enjoying being wheeled in and out of it, while held perfectly still by compression plates, while they gradually insert a needle into the small target? Really, really, really, really slim.
I have decided that if this becomes necessary, I am going to self-medicate with a tequila shot at the start of the exam.
And now I understand why they said, let’s hold off on more biopsies until we get the genetics result. If surgery is my best option because of that test, I will certainly skip this new method of torture, I mean, diagnostic exam…
So I am officially done with testing for at least two weeks. Sigh of relief.
Wow. I’ve never had an MRI and don’t really want one either. I’ve heard they are very noisy.
They gave me ear plugs and also headphones streaming music. I could still hear it, but I can’t imagine how loud it really is.