I was all calm cool and collected on the outside and a freaking train wreck on the inside. I mean anyone who would say otherwise would be a liar, or on something really strong for sure! I couldn't sleep and I ate at all hours. I was a mess. I wasn't even this way when I had brain surgery.
Doc tells me I have fibrocystic changes and they are adenomas. I have to be watched very closely because of my family history. There are no immediate family members who had breast cancer, but my grandmother, my aunt and my uncle's daughter all had it (on my dad's side). My cousin (uncle's daughter) passed away in less than six months after being diagnosed at the age of approximately 44. This made me even more anxious.
Life has plans for everyone or everyone has plans for life. In either case, I want to plan my life cancer-free! Now I will be going every three months for routine check-ups and ultrasounds every six months. This is something I am very okay with. I have extremely dense breasts which makes a mammogram useless. The doctor also put in tumor markers, all six of them so they can watch the spots to see it there are any specific changes.
I did ask the question that has been bugging me since they've been there. There are several types of markers or clips as they are called, cancer markers/tumor markers: open, coil, bow/ribbon, hydro and the list goes on. The one that really scared me was the bow clip, in the mammogram it is in the shape of the cancer ribbon. I asked, "Does this site mean it's more prone to be cancerous than the others?" I was relieved to find out it was a no. The difference is that they need to decipher between each site when checking them, ultra-sounding them and/or mammogramming them. For example: even though one doctor may have called each biopsy site a, b, c, the next doctor may refer to them as 1, 2, 3. With the markers being different if the surgeon goes in for a full lumpectomy then they know the exact site to remove according to the clip/marker. I told my oncologist I tried looking it up on Google of course for the last ten days and didn't find much of an answer. I feel like this should be explained to the patient much better when having them put in as I was freaking out over it since they were put in, thinking I had two spots that were being marked for cancerous areas out of the six.
Today is the first full day I woke up and was fully rested and I can say beside being sore, well I went to the gym last night, I feel awesome. This is the beginning of a new me. Life is what happens. Everyday is a gift and we need to remember that. I love me and I love my life. I love my children, my family, my friends and all the people in it. If I have any negativity it will quickly be removed from this point on. There is no need for it. Life=love=happiness=positivity.
UPDATE: I want to let you know that I saw the doctor and asked about the different types of clips as there are several different ones. They are called hydro, open, closed, bow etc. I was quite concerned because I had come back with all benign results, but had two clips placed, once in each breast called the bow, which when asked, they told me it was for breast cancer awareness. I thought that was great and just went on. As I thought about it, I somewhat psychoanalyzed the situation and tried to figure out what there was different ones placed in my breasts. I started getting scared and thinking it was maybe because one mass had a greater change of becoming cancer, maybe because of the pink cancer bow ribbon clip. Let me just say thanks Dr. Karpoff for setting me straight and stopping the anxiety. they are different because there are several different areas for the radiologist to look at when going back every three to six months or whenever your time frame is. They need to be able to decipher each area from one another, so they put different clips in, is what I was told, phew! That's a lot of weight off of me for sure.
Note: Figure above: I added an xray above just to show a picture of what a clip looks like in an xray shot. I'm pretty sure the one above on the bottom is called open. As you can see it isn't a closed loop.
