Big breast, little breast

So…I have been quiet for the past few days because aside from things being about as bad as they could get on the personal front, my health was again giving me cause for concern. My mastectomy flat-breasted side (is there a name for this, I wonder?) had swollen up and hardened – which is the symptom I had last year when the inflammatory breast cancer was diagnosed.  At first I mistook it for muscles I had gained doing all this rigmarole in the gym but then realised the left hand side was nothing like the right hand side. Each day it hardened further which added additional anxiety to the already sleepless, tearful nights. I made an urgent appointment with my oncology consultant and the appointment was today.

She examined me and told me that she thought it did indeed look like a recurrence of the cancer on the same site…however to make sure she needed me to have a FNA (fine needle aspiration) and get me scanned. I went along to the breast imaging clinic who very kindly agreed to fit me in immediately. The doctor used an ultrasound and in a bemused tone said that she thought it might be an unusual presentation of fluid and might not be a cancer. She and a nurse then aspirated 450ml of blood from my inflated breast area. She seemed fairly confident that this may be the end of any panic but has sent samples off for testing just in case. I was then padded up with endless dressings as blood had seeped just everywhere, on all 3 of us and over the couch as well as filling three kidney dishes and bottles for the lab.

I then returned to the oncologist. Apparently this is most unusual (what do you know? unusual seems to be my theme tune) but as she said “you can’t aspirate a cancer” so it’s looking like good news. I do however have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the blood results to come back to be sure that nothing nasty is lurking and there were of course, the nodes the doctor felt under my arm when she examined me.

So tomorrow is another day – I will either carry on with treatment as is….or go for scans in next few days and change treatment (to another new drug that I have yet to research)…will have to go back to “the waiting room” of previous months…

Although many people generously offered to go with me today, I went alone…This is how it is now and the sooner I face it the better…but I was unable to stop crying throughout, wishing my husband could have been at my side…