Breast Cancer. The Consultant Breast Care Nurse and my first appointment.

18th June 2013, The Breast Care Unit.
The breast care unit at my local hospital is now a purpose built building, no longer part of the main out patients department as it was in 2008. It is a very nice department, I go in and meet the friendly  Consultant Breast Care Nurse. She takes my history;
I am 55 years old, do not smoke ( never have), have two daughters and breast fed then both for a long time. There is no family history of breast cancer. My BMI is 22. I have taken the pill in the past and am taking HRT now. I am fit and healthy for my age and she tells me in the 'low risk' group.....but she pulls a face at the word HRT.
She then gets a sheet of paper with a 'breast map' on it. Examines my breasts, she can feel the lump in the right breast at 9 O'clock, but whilst I say its a pea size lump, she thinks its more tubular in shape. Its is painful and I jump when it is palpated. She draws the findings on the breast map.
I move along the corridor to a room where I have a Mammogram. This is a very thorough examination as the Radiographer locates the lump with a special probe. But it is not unpleasant or painful. I don't understand why all the Mammograms are all so different?
The Consultant Breast Care Nurse calls me in to her office, the Mammogram does not show anything on it. But she is concerned as the lump is palpable and would like me to have a Scan. I go to another room for the scan.
The Doctor performing the scan can see the lump, but the out lines of it are 'poorly defined', so she asks if she can to do a Punch Biopsy. I consent. Lignocaine is injected into the area to numb the pain, then using a thick trocar needle she takes a few samples of the breast tissue. They look like worms in a pot. This procedure sounds worse than the Fine Needle Biopsy I had in 2008, but thanks to the lignocaine it was less painful than that was.
The Consultant Breast Nurse calls me back into her office to tell me that:
The Mammogram does not show anything, but the lump can be seen on scan and the Doctor performing the scan 'is undecided as to what it looks like'. The results of the biopsy will be back on Friday PM and how do I want to get the results. I explain that there is a problem with the date as I will be on a Virgin plane, with my family on the Friday. Bound for Orlando. She tells me that I can have the results sent to me by text? I decline, I don't want to know the results by Text as  its not going to make any difference to my plans, in that I won't be cancelling my holiday if it is Cancer........to late I will be on my way! and anyway it will not make a difference to any treatment plan or surgery schedule even if it is Cancer. I decide I will pop over on Monday 8th of July, when I am back at work and get the results then.
I tell her I have not told any one in my family, asking what she thinks I should do? She kindly advises me that I should let my husband know I have had the tests as it may be a shock for him if the result is Cancer, this is the right decision and I do it when I get home that evening. He seems to take the news well, but is totally convinced that it will be OK and cant possibly be Cancer..........I know it is denial.

I ask him not to tell the rest of the family as I don't want it to be the subject of discussion for the holiday.

Breast Cancer. The first step in my breast cancer journey, pain in my right breast.

Hello! this is my story of having Breast Cancer. I am a white English woman. I have a husband & 2 daughters and quite a few dogs. I am a Nurse and midwife and I work in the NHS. This is my experience.

 I qualified as a British Nurse in 1978. Whilst I was undertaking my training as a pupil nurse, an image that has remained with me through the years was of caring for a woman who had undergone a Classical Radical Mastectomy for Breast Cancer. The whole breast, including Nipple, Areola and her Lymph Nodes had been removed. Through my 18 year old eyes it looked like she had been butchered. I remember dressing the puckered skin, the Surgeon had done a sort of blanket stich straight across the woman's chest, she had drains in and was nursed with the arm up, above her head, in a hanging sling for at least 10 days. I think she stayed in the hospital for a period of about 15 days. That was my last experience of nursing a patient with Breast Cancer, as I went on to become a Midwife where women's breasts are used for other purposes.

Me at the time of my 50th Birthday.

In England when you are 50 your appointment for your first Mammogram comes through the post with your 50th Birthday Cards. In 2007, I had dutifully made my way to the screening van in the car park of a local superstore. Here my 32DD bust was squashed to a one inch flat pancake, then just as I thought it was painful, but bearable, the Radiographer ratchet it down even further in a vice like grip. I found it a horrible test, very painful and humiliating. I did not hear from them so assumed it was all clear. I later found out this was the case.
In 2008 I noted a 'thickening' around my Nipple area in my right breast at about 3 O'clock ( you quickly learn this is how the Surgeons and breast care nurses refer to the areas of your breasts). I went to the GP who sent me to the Breast Clinic at my local hospital. I had a 'Fine Needle Biopsy' (FNB) in the Out Patients Department. My breast was palpated, the area identified, then the surgeon inserting a green needle attached to a 20 ml syringe into the area, this was done with out anaesthetic and once he had draw a small amount of breast tissue into the green needle, this 'Biopsy' was send to the lab. I then had to go to another department for a Mammogram, but this was a very different experience that the 'Van in the Car Park' carry on, even though I was sore and bruised from the examination and FNB the Mammogram was not as painful as my first experience. When the results came back, they were all clear it was just a fibrous area of breast tissue. So my next routine Mammogram would now be in 2013 and I would be called as routine via letter.
March 2013, I had been experiencing a deep burning sensation in my right breast, this time at 9 O'clock for about 18 month. But I was busy with a full time demanding and stressfull job, by now a senior Midwife in the NHS in a practice development / delivery suite shift leader role. As well as a wife and mother to two adult daughters, two dogs, parents who were getting older.....LIFE!
April 2013, I went on holiday to Sri Lanka with my daughter. We went to a Yoga and Surfing Retreat at Talalla Lodge, this is a link to my travel blog http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=435807495647998918#editor/target=post;postID=3645945395386130871;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=5;src=postname
I went for a massage and realised that something couldn't be right as I was having difficulty laying on my front due to the pain in the breast.
May 2013, Very busy back at work, than at the end of May the pain in the right breast is keeping me awake at night and I feel a pea size lump. The next day I telephone the GP, after a long wait on the phone listening to mind numbing music I get an appointment for the first week in June.
6th June 2013, I go to see my GP, she can feel the lump as well. She refers me by email to the Breast Unit at the local Hospital. At this point I have not spoken to any one about this. Not my husband or my daughters, after all what the point of worrying them if its nothing? I get an appointment to go to the Breast Care Unit on 18th June 2013.


18th June 2013, at work the day of my appointment, displaying hats knitted for the New babies!