Boob Biopsies

I scheduled the biopsies for the next week. You tell yourself they are no big deal but you really don’t believe your own lie. I had convinced myself that the lump on the left was just an infection that needed to be cleared. I then convinced myself that the one on the right was merely bruising.

Let’s back it up to January. Long story short, there was an ice dam on my roof and when it got unseasonably warm, drip drops started falling on my head. I was sitting in the living room in my two story cabin and knew my bed was above me so it didn’t make any sense. So I put on my trusty headlamp and went out in the dark (since it’s pretty much always dark in January), only to find that water was pooling under the ice. It was seeping under the metal roofing, down the walls, into the insulation, then back through the ceiling, and on to my head. Yay for me!

So the next day, up I go with my neighbor’s kiddo onto the roof. He is a He-Man who helps me now and again. I had made calls to hire a roof shoveler, but they were booked out, and I was impatient and am super cheap, I mean frugal. So we strapped in to the propane tanks over the top of the house and got to work.

He-Man got a call to go save his dad, so I continued on my own. A few hours later, the whole side of the roof slid with me on top of the ice sheet. I was 20 feet up. There was about 4 feet of soft snow on the ground beneath. I woke up on the ground.

I had clipped into to a waist harness but not a locking one. Instead of catching, the clasp slipped when I fell, so I plummeted straight down. I landed on my right side, chest down, arms bent. Lots of bruising- including my right boob (see I had a point!), but miraculously nothing broken. I seriously believe that regular strength training completely saved me here. Talk about giving you strong bones! It was a miracle that I could walk away from that. It was at least a 16 foot drop.

So back to the biopsies and my logical explanation of both lumps – an infection from a bee sting and a fatty mass from a fall. Not a problem. Problem is, you still get the niggling.

After my episode in the special room, I scoured the internet for what exactly was going to happen at this procedure. I found stats that literally over a million women have breast biopsies each year and that 80% of breast biopsies are actually benign. I wish I was told that in the special room. It might have eased some of my trepidation with the procedure.

Breast Biopsies

I had ultrasound guided core needle biopsies. Due to COVID, no one could come to support me. They weren’t even allowed in the waiting room, so I went in alone. With the front open gown on, I laid on my back and blocks were used to help arrange my body for the ultrasound. The radiologist cleaned and numbed the areas and then used the ultrasound to navigate through each mass. I followed the path of the needle as it moved through the breast tissue into each mass, watching it leave channels through each breast. The needle then makes a loud clicking pen sound as it takes a sample, or leaves a marker. It happened 6-8 times on each side. The needle didn’t really hurt as it entered the masses, but the samples taken did. They felt a bit like a pinch or sting.

About half way through the procedure I decided I was done. I was done watching, done with the clicking, and I wanted to go home. I looked up at the ceiling with my chest exposed and the tears started to come. I couldn’t make them stop. I wasn’t in any real pain or anything, I just didn’t want to be there doing this anymore.

I silently watered my eyes while they did the other side, and they gave me a tissue and a moment to collect myself. Didn’t work. I was a bit of a basket case and totally embarrassed because the tears wouldn’t stop coming. I kept telling myself it was silly for me to be so emotional about this all, but when lying on your back staring at the dots on the ceiling foam, you really start to think. You think about everything you were pretending not to think about over the last week while you waited for this procedure. You start to think of the pathology results and how long it will take them to come back. You take a breath and allow yourself to ask the dreaded “What If?”. What if? What if I am one of the 20% that doesn’t come back negative? What then? What do I tell my dd? It’s just us. If something happens to me, what are we supposed to do then? And when the thoughts start to come, just try making them stop.

After they stab your boobs, you get to squish ’em. Again. They take you right back to the mammogram you had at square one. They do the mammogram to make sure the magic metal markers are in the right place. Luckily, my mammogram tech was the same one as before, and just as lovely. It was like visiting an old friend now and she even gave me a hug after my biopic ordeal. She understood the fear and panic I was going through, could sense I was losing it, so she shut the door and gave me some space and told me it was okay to cry, and so I did as I hugged her. She truly cared, and was full of compassion. She even snuck me some extra bon-bons for boobies, when no one was looking.