After Memorial Day, I had an extremely sore nipple. I thought maybe it was because I had just done some “astronaut training” at Family Space Camp (super fun camp, if anyone is interested Space camp Programs | U.S. Space & Rocket Center). We trained on the multi access trainer, did 1/6 gravity walking and I was walking around for 12 hours straight with a backpack strapped across my chest. I figured it was all that movement my body didn’t normally do. Maybe it was because my boob was being held upside down for too long?! But it was still there after a week. The pain came and went, sometimes too painful to wear a bra or a shirt.
I texted my doc and she said to go see the breast cancer specialists in order to “rule out boob-badness, given your history.” So, I called the next day to make an appointment. I was lucky to get in within a month and settled in for the long haul of overthinking all the possibilities while I waited to be seen.
I hadn’t seen Heidi, my ARNP from breast surgery, in five years so we had some catching up to do. We discussed how different it is to relate to our kids now that they are in middle and high school and how she is so excited to be receiving less emails from elementary school now that her son is entering middle school.
The exam was pretty benign. She looked and felt with my arms held in various positions. She did not see or feel anything potentially scary. Both implants have lower volume than they did when they were “installed,” which is normal. Given that I had one of the best breast surgeons in the state, she said that she is assured that there is no actual tissue left for anything to be growing so she is reasonably sure that it is not cancer.
Phew.
She said to get an ultrasound, however, so that any bad things she cannot feel are ruled out. An ultrasound will likely show us nothing, which is both good and bad. It is good because there is nothing bad growing. It is bad because there is still no answer to why my nipple is so sensitive and painful.
I called imaging and they were able to get me scheduled for the very next week! Great, only 6 days of thinking about all the thinking I will be doing about this.
I hope they don’t find anything
No, I hope they find NOTHING. The latter seems more definite.
As it is summer and my kids are home, I did not have too much quiet time in which to think about the scariness that was possible. I was on edge, but not overly so.
The day of the procedure, I got up early, had a quiet cup of coffee and drove the same road to the hospital – the one I have driven to so many times before. The imagining center was located in the same place. The procedure for check-in had changed very little. The TV in the breast imaging center waiting room had been removed. I waited with three other women. All were called in before me. They were getting mammograms. Tonya came out and called my name, introduced herself and told me she would be doing my ultrasound. I asked her how her day was going but didn’t really hear her answer. She walked me to the room in which I would have my procedure.
It happened to be the room in which I had my last ultrasound – the one where the radiologist told me I likely had DCIS. The curtain was different – refreshed with a light pink background and flowery pattern, but it was the same room. It was the same machine. I would be lying if I said I didn’t freak out just a bit. But I held it together to answer Tonya’s questions about my health history and if I had had any imaging since my original surgeries. I couldn’t tell you any of the other questions she asked though. I was concentrating on breathing without letting the tears roll down my face.
The ultrasound was uneventful, a bit painful when she pressed down hard for a better image. She went to compare the left nipple with the right only to find out she had no nipple to compare to. Otherwise, the was only silence between us. She popped up quickly after handing me a warm towel to wipe myself off and said she would be back immediately because she was going to have the doctor review the results right then.
“Fabulous,” I screeched.
OMG, Kate, who says “fabulous” to that.
It was the longest 6 minutes of my life. During that six minutes, I:
Planned for my kids and husband to take summer vacation without me, because I would be getting surgery for something.
Organized who would pick me up from the hospital.
Planned how I could have my parents fly or drive up to make sure I was ok with the pain meds and drive me to appointments while my immediate family was gone.
How I would tell my kids that I would have to have both fake boobs taken away because I didn’t want to live with this fear of the unknown or possibility of issues with them in the future.
Thought about where I would shop for close that would make me feel descent with no boobs.
Tonya knocked and popped back in announcing there was nothing to see, no cancer and that she hoped I was relieved by that.
Phew.
I almost immediately got an email with the test result and then minutes later, a message from Heidi. She said she is ecstatic that there is nothing there and sorry that there are not better reasons for the intermittent pain. Insurance, she said, isn’t really paying for breast MRIs without huge justification, so that is likely not an option for me at this time. I may never have answers and always have pain. If I am really bothered by it all, they can try to submit to insurance, or I could pay out of pocket. But those are decisions for another day.
Today, I need to process the huge emotions of going through the trauma again. Which I never got to do. Because when I got home, I had kid things to do, a house to clean, errands to run and no time to stop and process that I had just did a really hard thing. And it almost zipped me back five years to the beginning of that journey instantaneously. I am standing on familiar and sacred ground, ground on which I wish I never had to stand on, but with life comes things we don’t want to do.
And in the silence of the night, it all comes crashing down. Friends, I wish I could say that trauma runs its course and then disappears. However, it does not. It pops up with seemingly benign things, when you least expect it. It makes you moody, unable to concentrate and feeling a little like crawling back into bed. This is where I live now, with the unknown. I am “clear” but there is so much unknown. And as long as I have the tools to continue thriving, it is with that unknown that I will reside.
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