We can't go on together.......with suspicious minds.....er.. lumps

Do lumps hang out with a dodgy crowd ? Loitering in front of fast food venues selling questionable methamphetamines? Are they helping police with their enquiries?

What constitutes suspicious?

So I head to my  GP's rooms the next day. Perhaps its not appropriate that I reveal her name in such a forum without her express permission. Besides even if I did reveal her name, you can't get an appointment because she works in a surgery in the inner north that is no longer accepting new clients. Apparently a common occurence these days.

But she is wonderfully level. A good thing. I have an early morning appointment and we get straight to it. She advises me that not only is there the lump that I already felt  but there is also another one in the same breast (the left) and another little bugger in the right breast. But from what she tells me, this right breast one isnt "suspicious" at all - its more of a Carrie Bickmore -all form but no substance.

The two in my other breast however, are what are decsribed by medical parlance as suspicious. According to the mamogram and ultrasound the signs are not promising and I will need to have a core biopsy of each lump to determine the extent and type and the results will also determine the next procedure that I may need. We talk about many things and I am extremely conscious of the need to remember and recall all that she is imparting.

I tell her that I am balancing what she is saying at the same time as metally preparing myself to ensure that I continue to hear everything. My mind is concurrently chugging down two distinctly separate but parallel tracks. I digest the information. She tells me somewhat drily - which I appreciate enormously, not to rush out and rewrite my will that very afternoon but to prepare for the significant possibility of bad news post biopsy and to try and emotionally get to a place where I could hear that further treatment will be required.

I deliberately raise the worst case scenario situation (not death - though I guess that is probably the worst case outcome but to me that seems highly impropbable in this day and age), I do this not because I am a drama queen - though many of my dear dear friends would have you think otherwise.......but because it helps me process and plan. It's what I do with all major issues. Think the worst, process and plan for the that and then anything of lesser impact or outcome can be readily (and more easily) managed.

So, to me the worst case would be a final outcome of requiring a double mastectomy, but not for vanity reasons. And it is at this point that I think there is an interpretation issue for clinical person versus lay person.

A double mastectomy for me is not the worst case. I understand that reconstructuive surgery is terrific these days (and who at my age wouldn't want some firmer more northerly positioned bosoms - unless you were a bloke of course??)  My greater and greatest fear is psychologically and emotionally let alone physically having the strength to bat up for a series of procedures based on the principle of doctors seeking to minimise harm but being unsuccessful in those attempts and thus more invasive work is subsequently required.

At this stage of the process and indeed if and when I start it, I wont know how awful it will be or how bad I will feel. But fast forward, -  and if I had to face it a second or third time knowing in advance how awful it is and how crap I am going to feel will be so much harder. I may not know many things but I do know my limitations. And whilst I will be stoic first time around - I would be a total mess in a dress the second time on the merry go round. Hence I told my GP I am not a fan of episodic processes or euphamistically speaking, death by a thousand cuts. I want to know if it is perhaps better to go more radical in the first instance and blow the bastard right out of the water. Like all good doctors - she said we can discuss these options when we had a firm basis upon which to weigh such options.

Its abit of a bitch because we are two days from Easter which could mean a bloody long wait for the results and that isn't all that flash. So we book the core biopsies for later that same afternoon. I am to head back to East Melbourne where I have a date with needles, an ugly waiting room and more bad daytime television. As I leave her surgery I reflect on how I feel.  For me, there isnt any drop in my stomach, nor the white noise whooshing sound. I am clear and I am lucid. I have research to do.

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Kelly