MRI Results

I was really having a great day. I spent 45 minutes this morning talking to a recent survivor (a friend of a friend) in Arizona, who although she is 58 and post-menopausal, has very similar cancer to mine. She was so reassuring, so honest, so positive. I was able to ask her things I haven't dared to say out loud to anyone else. She was back playing golf, and taking vacations and doing all the things she normally does 6 weeks after surgery. Her surgery was a snap. They tried to do a lumpectomy but ended up doing a mastectomy because they couldn't get it all, and she didn't even sound upset about that. Her reconstruction even went pretty well. I was kind of floating, thinking this could be a lot easier than I thought.

Then the phone rang. They weren't supposed to call me until Wednesday with the results of my MRI. So I was pretty thrown off when my cell phone rang while I was at the office. The fellow said her name and I really didn't catch it. But then she said she was calling with the MRI results. And boom, right into them.

She said there was "nothing exciting about my left breast." I hadn't really thought of breast MRI's in terms of finding things as being exciting but those really were her words. The fact that I don't have cancer in it seems pretty exciting to me, but what do I know! Then she said they found something "interesting" in a new spot in my right breast, far away from the other two spots. It could just be a fluid filled cyst but she said her attending "didn't like the nodular rim".

She wanted to schedule me to come in right away and get another biopsy or have them pull out the fluid and see what they see. I said thank you but no. She seemed a little taken back. But I have now read enough that I am starting to manage my own care. I have read a lot about breast MRI's and that they give a lot of false positives.

I am going to see a surgeon in the morning. I told her, I'll talk to him first. I told her I wasn't procedure happy, if they're going to cut off my breast in a few weeks, they can look at it then and figure out if it's cancer or a cyst. And well, if he thinks a lumpectomy is the way to go and he really wants me to get a biopsy, I'll think about it. But voluntarily getting another biopsy while I already know I have cancer and am going to have surgery is overkill. Actually another biopsy anytime in this lifetime would not be on my list. She sounded very disappointed. I think she was looking forward to the work.