Benign Intervention

Warning: this blog is about breasts and cancer. It is, thankfully, a happy ending.

It had been a stressful couple of months so when another lump appeared in my right breast it was more of an inconvenience than a worry: ‘I don’t have time for this.’

Thanks to my best friend Lisa, who had cancer several years ago, I’m a regular checker of my boobs – as should everyone be.

The first time I found a lump in my right breast during my usual monthly check in the shower, I thought, ‘bloody hell, that’s big.’

‘Can you feel this?’ I said to my partner, putting his hand over it.

‘Hmm, not really.’

It hung around and so I called the GP. When he got me in, he said he could feel the lump and as I was over 30, I’d be put on the Cancer Pathway, which is a scary-sounding way of saying that they’ll give it a proper check at the hospital and they guarantee to do that within 2 weeks.

Sure enough, 2 weeks later I’m lying on a bed with my arms over my head, having an ultrasound.

‘Yes I see it, it’s a cyst. You’ve actually got a few. Keep doing what you’re doing, check each month, wait 2 weeks for changes, then see the doctor.’

I was relieved, thought no more of it.

A couple of years later, during the pandemic, another persistent lump pops up. I start the process again. This time, as the hospitals are so busy, I’m sent to a private one.

I’m lying on a table again having an ultrasound. She’s taking a long time. ‘Everything okay…?’

‘Yes, it’s definitely a cyst, but I’m seeing quite a lot of them so I’m just checking each one.’

This time, when I see the surgeon after the ultrasound, he puts a large needle into the cyst to aspirate it. I joke about his cold hands, we laugh – muffled by masks – and I wince at the sharp sting of the needle. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ he reassures me. ‘Keep coming back when you find these, it’s what we’re here for.’

A year or so later, the third time starts to feel routine. I see the GP, she says, ‘ah I see from your notes you’ll know the process well by now.’

Ultrasound. Surgeon.

This time he says, ‘you need to check your breasts every 2 weeks now, not every month, and don’t wait longer than 2 weeks to come in if nothing changes.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘It’s fine, just you’re prone to these and have several every time we see you and we’d rather be safe than risk missing anything.’

A couple of months ago: NOT NOW, BOOB. Another lump appears and stubbornly refuses to go away, despite inner pleas. Back to the GP, we joke, she offers sympathy that I keep going through this, reassures me I’m doing the right thing, as they always do.

My partner comes with me to the hospital but waits in the car as you still can’t have anyone in with you. We talk about going for breakfast afterwards, ‘I’ll not be any longer than an hour.’

I’m not unduly worried. I have my ultrasound, she tells me it’s a cyst. I go back to the waiting area to see the surgeon where I’ll be signed off until the next time. I text Lisa and my partner from the waiting room. They’re the only two people who ever know. ‘Just a cyst, my regular little bag of marbles,’ I joke about my boob.

I change into a gown again for the surgeon to have a feel – this happens every time. I’m still not worried. Waiting for the surgeon, I chat to the nurse and start to think about what I’ll have for breakfast.

Arms over my head, he’s feeling each breast carefully in turn. None of this registers anymore, I’m used to it all. Maybe I’ll have a full English. Am I bothered about bacon?

‘Have they aspirated any lumps before?’

‘Yeah, once’

‘Is it okay if I do this one?’

‘Yeah’

The surgeon draws a circle in pen on my breast. The big needle comes out. (Maybe I’ll ask them not to put any black pudding on the breakfast).

‘Oh,’ I suck air in through my teeth.

‘You’re doing really well,’ the nurse says from the end of the table, smiling, though I can’t see her mouth under her mask.

‘I’m okay, don’t worry, just it’s quite painful and I’m surprised, as it wasn’t last time.’

The surgeon pipes up, ‘yeah, actually I’m having trouble with it and I’m not sure why.’

He tries a little longer and it starts to get almost unbearably painful when he stops.

He feels around the breast, then the left one, the right one again. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. In my head I’ve already left the hospital and drinking my first coffee of the day.

‘Hmm.’

?

‘This whole side of your breast has a different texture, have you noticed this?’

‘No…?’

He spends longer pressing the skin. My heart has sped up a little. ‘Okay, just to be safe and make sure we’re not missing anything in the tissue here, I think I’d like to take some biopsies if that’s okay with you.’

It’s not okay. What’s going on, why is this different from all the other times. ‘Yes, of course, no problem.’

He puts another needle into my already sore breast, a local anaesthetic. On the tray next to me they lay out some slides. While the local kicks in he tells me that he’s going to send the little bit of fluid he got from the lump off to test also.

He picks up a scalpel and pushes the tip into the skin, ‘Can you feel this?’

‘No.’ Blood wells up and the nurse presses a pad down hard. I feel like my body belongs to someone else and I’m an observer. ‘You won’t feel anything but you might not like the noise of the needle.’

‘The noise?’

‘Yeah it makes a sort of loud sound that can give people a bit of a shock.’

‘Haha, I wasn’t that nervous but now I am.’ We laugh. ‘Don’t make me laugh when you’ve got a huge needle.’ We laugh again. I don’t want to see it going into my flesh, I look at the ceiling.

SNAP.

I do an involuntary little jump. It’s like a loud stapler. ‘That wasn’t so bad,’ I say. ‘I thought it was going to sound like a dentist’s drill or something.’ We laugh again and the little voice in my head says, why are you laughing, this isn’t how it was meant to go, you should have left by now with the all-clear and be on your way to breakfast.

There are several more loud snaps, the last one hurts. ‘Sorry, that one is quite near the surface so you can feel it on your skin.’

Then it’s done and the nurse puts a large plaster over my breast. ‘You’ll be a bit battered and sore for a few days once the anaesthetic wears off.’ She gives me some spare plasters to take with me.

I get up and get dressed, thank them both for their time. The surgeon tells me again that he’s just being careful and there’s probably nothing to worry about, I’ll get a letter in a couple of weeks.

I feel good, sore boob aside. I get in the car, ‘it got a little more complicated,’ I explain, ‘but it’s all fine.’ I tell Lisa too via message. She says lovely reassuring things and I tell her that I feel weirdly okay about it all, they’re just being careful, I’m not worried at all. I feel fine for the rest of the day. I get my cooked breakfast.

That night I have a dream that I’m back in the surgeon’s room and he’s trying to tell me there’s something wrong with me but I can’t understand what he’s saying. I wake up panicked.

I am worried then, it would seem. Small things continue to go wrong and add to the pressure. My PC won’t start up. We have a small break – one night away – with our friends, it helps to take my mind off everything. My breast goes various shades of black, blue, and yellow.

As soon as we’re back, it’s there again, ‘what if…?’ Oh stop that, it’s fine and you know it. ‘Yeah, but what if…?

I chide myself for being complacent at the appointment, as if any sort of positive or negative thinking could possibly change the course of things.

Social media seems to make everything worse, I see so much toxic behaviour – there’s a separate blog in this, I think – and feel worse about everything. I find I’m whinging on about stuff constantly until I’m sick of myself. I deactivate Twitter temporarily. I tell myself I’ll reactivate it when I get the results, but the break does me good, I feel lighter. I open the app a couple of times out of habit, to a plain ‘log in’ screen.

The tumble dryer breaks.

Today, the 2 week deadline approaching. I feel sick about it. The letterbox goes, the post has come early. There is a letter on the mat.

I pull it open and see NHS on the header, my heart speeds up. I scan read the medical gumph not really taking anything in, until I see in brackets

(definitely benign).

The best ending to the story I could have hoped for; a weight lifted before the bruises have even fully healed.

Until next time, then.

NB: Check your breasts, chest, and under your arms. Feel for any new lumps or changes, look in the mirror for any changes in skin or texture. Check at the same time each month because there can be changes during your cycle. Get to know what’s ‘normal’ for you. If you feel a lump and it doesn’t go within 2 weeks, or gets bigger, make a GP appointment.