Two years before I was diagnosed with grade III invasive ductal carcinoma, I found the lump.
It was April 2013 and after losing my amazing aunt, Karen, to breast cancer the summer before, I was terrified. I sent a message to my doctor, who saw me the very same day. After a physical exam, she told me it was simply fibrocystic breast tissue.
And I believed her.
Because when you’re scared you might have cancer and your doctor, who you like and trust, tells you it’s not, you don’t question it; you don’t want it to be cancer.
The following spring when I went in for my annual physical, I mentioned to this same physician that I still had the lump in my left breast and that it often hurt. She told me that cancer didn’t hurt, so we wouldn’t need to worry about, and again chalked it up to fibrocystic breast tissue.
I believed her, but I still felt uneasy about it.
Last April I saw a different doctor. Not because I wanted a second opinion, but because my doctor was teaching at a local college and had dropped a portion of her patient load. I was one of the patients who had been dropped and needed to find another physician. I thank God that I was.
Again, this new doctor immediately suggested fibrocystic breast tissue and recommended I see if it goes away after my next menstrual cycle. When I told her it was not a new lump, but I had in fact been monitoring it for two years and it had since gotten more painful, larger and more pronounced, she decided we should get it checked out.
Knowing I had a full plate with the end of the school year and our wedding the next month, along with feeling confident that it was likely just a cyst, she set up an ultrasound for me in the beginning of June after things settled down.
On my second day of summer vacation I went in for the ultrasound. At first the technician and I made small talk. It wasn’t until the silence in the room became suspicious that I started to get scared. When she said she was going to have the radiologist look over the images and then come talk to me, I knew something was wrong.
He didn’t beat around the bush. “I am concerned about this and want to have it biopsied,” he said. “It looks like cancer.” Immediately I started to cry. He wouldn’t bring up cancer unless he was fairly certain. It was clear that both he and the technician had seen ultrasounds like this before and knew what we were dealing with.
Two days later, I went in for the biopsy and waited five more painfully long days to hear the diagnosis I was, at that point, fairly certain I'd hear. That was June 9, 2015.
Before then I didn’t know any better to ask for, or demand, if needed, an ultrasound or a biopsy. Since my diagnosis, I have met and heard of other women from their 20’s to their 60’s who have had similar experiences. Some were not as lucky to finally receive the correct diagnosis it in time. I now realize the importance of being your own advocate. If something doesn’t feel right, if something is worrying you, you have the right to ask for a second opinion, an ultrasound, a biopsy, or whatever testing is available. It may not always be routine to have these procedures done, and true, insurance may not always cover it, but I can say without doubt that it is well worth it to have either the peace of mind or to know and treat it as early as possible.
Health is too important to be passive about or put off or assume because of age, statistics or any other circumstances that we are exempt from problems. I didn’t know any better before, but I know better now. If anything good can come of what I have experienced, it would be for everyone else to understand the importance of being an advocate for your own health. If you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you.