Erm, so, I found a lump……

And here comes a post about boobs!

So, 8, maybe 9 now, weeks ago I found a lump in my boob. Actually that’s a lie. Flash, the little superstar hero that he is, found a lump. He stood on my right boob in a routine moment of bothering me as a lounged on the sofa watching trash on Netflix, and it hurt. Hurt in a ooooh, i just stubbed my little toe on the bed frame way, not a sticking pins in my eyes way, but it was still a bit strange as it’s something he has a habit of doing regularly (fellow dog owners don’t lie and tell me your dogs don’t use you as a climbing frame too) and it never usually causes me any pain. So I had a little prod, found a painful lump and well, that where this story my starts……

21/07/16

As I write this, I am waiting for a hospital appointment to come though. An
appointment to scan my right boob. A scan to tell me what the lump in my boob
is. It’s hard, it feels like it’s attached to my rib cage, it doesn’t move and it’s painful (especially when I wear the wrong bra and it
pushes on it which is a massive pain in the bum). When I found it, I thought that maybe it had something to do with the physio appointments I’ve been doing for my back, maybe they had cracked my back a bit too hard and soem of my rib had popped out the front (Don’t mock me, I have literally no clue about how the body workds!) and might go away, but as it hasn’t, I’m now waiting to find out when it is.

I’ve got an appointment at the hospital but it’s not until late August and I’m going to be honest, I know the NHS is great but as I first went to my Drs on the 6th July, a 7 week wait* to find out why there is something sticking out of me, feels like it’s taking the piss a bit so I am looking into whether I can go via my work Bupa cover to get it sorted.


29/07/16
Yesterday I had an appointment at a local private hospital (through my work Bupa – I’m not flashing the cash!). I thought it was going to be a routine ultrasound, that they would tell me the lump was nothing and send me home. I was planning an early dog walk followed by gin with a friend. But those plans were a bit scuppered. Unfortunately it appears that the lump is ‘suspicious’ so I was whisked off for a mammogram and a biopsy. During the mammogram they found another lump in my other boob (that they think is a cyst or benign lump but provided a good contrast on screen to the other lump), so what I imagined would be a half hour trip to the hospital, ended up being loads of random women touching my boobs, 2 biopsies, no dog walking and a LOT of gin with the previously mentioned friend (she’s a teacher and on holiday. She deserved a hangover!).

Also I’m not sure quite what happened but during the biopsy of the original lump, but because it’s so close to my rib cage, it meant it hit the bone and let me tell you I’ve never quite felt pain like that. Ever. It’s a day later and my god, i can’t move without sharp shooting pains. I thought I was going to be sick. Or faint. I can advise not having anything stuck into your bones when you are unprepared for it. Just a tip for you!

And right now I have a week wait to see a specialist and to get the results back, but the lady doing the ultrasound and the biopsy suggested she thought it was most probably cancerous, so my weekend plans right now look like they involve drinking a lot and forgetting about this for a while.

06/08/16

We met with the specialist last night. We had it confirmed that there is a cancer in the first lump, the one that Flash found by standing on me, the second however is nothing. So there is the bad news, but the good news is that it’s small. Its been caught early. It looks really treatable.

The next stages are to have a little operation, probably next Friday, to take out the lump and to check my lymph nodes haven’t got it too, then it’ll be tested to make sure it’s what we thought, and the rest of the treatment can be decided.

After a couple of days of feeling constantly sick with the not fully knowing, it feels good to have it confirmed – and now it is confirmed there is a plan to sort it and get rid of it. Last night we went for dinner with friends, today we’re spending the day with friends. We’re having a normal, busy weekend. I do have to convince my mum that I can carry on as normal though. She seems to think I am sick and apparently sick people shouldn’t go out. Clearly I am not sick, but mums…….she’s still got the ‘if you can’t go to school you can’t play out’ mentality!

12/08/16
Today was my lumpectomy. I had the cancerous lump taken out of my right boob and some of the sentinel nodes (?) under my right arm taken out, I believe. I woke up from the general anaesthetic a funny shade of grey, super hungry and in pain.

Now, after the op there is a 2 week wait to find out how aggressive the cancer is/was, to see what treatment I’ll need next. There are basically 2 options, 1 involves chemo and radiotherapy and the other involves just radioterapy, which is my preferred option, so lets keep our fingers crossed that it’s not spread to my lymph nodes because that’s the best option for next step treatments.


*****

So here is my news. Right now I’m very positive about the outcome, so I’m sticking to positive vibes only around here. I’m not reading bad stories, I’m not telling negative people (or people I’ve not seen in person, in case you’re a 3D friend feeling put out I’ve not whatsapped you to tell you) and I’m not inviting stories of bad cancer experiences into my life. If you’ve lost someone through cancer, I’m very sorry for your loss and I feel for you terribly but I’d like to ask that you don’t share those details with me. Here, on social media or in real life. Coolio? And do not tell me I need to eat kale. I asked the oncology nurse and she said it’s not going to help. So I believe her!

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on this turning into a cancer blog (because that would be super depressing I imagine), but it’s what’s happening right now in my life and it’d be really fake to not share it I think (But as my brother’s on holiday and doesn’t know yet, lets not start tagging me in Facebook shit please!)

And without getting all ‘Saved by the Bell’ on you, if reading this prompts you to act on anything, any lumps you might be worried about, or prompts you to push your doctor harder to sort some thing out, then my job here is done.

* Yes I am super pissed at the original Dr I saw who clearly didn’t take me, or my lump seriously. Right now I’ll be having the op to remove the cancer a week before I’d have been seen by the NHS for an ultrasound, because the locum Dr didn’t take me seriously. I’ve been told about the 2 week guidelines that there are for lumps and suspected cancer. I mean even if I went in thinking it was nothing, he’s a GP, surely this is what they are trained to do?
**Jokes. Melle broke puppies for me. He’s just too mental. Adorable but mental.

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