Monday, June 9, 2008, after an appointment with my family doctor which concerned my fear that I did indeed seem to have some sort of breast lump I was immediately scheduled for a mammogram.  Many of you will be familiar with the standard response you get when you have tests like this done, which is usually "I can't really tell you anything, unfortunately, since I'm just a technician."  Let me tell you, this is not the case when you actually have something dire going on.  What I got this day was a whole day of dismayed expressions and "Oh no, this looks really bad, you should be worried, I'm worried."

I wasn't even completely dressed following the mammogram when they took me to another room for an ultrasound, and I didn't manage to get dressed after that before they had a doctor on the phone who wanted me to come to the hospital across the street for a biopsy.  I can only say that I am deeply grateful that all of this happened so fast... I don't know what I would have done if I'd had to wait a long time between each of these procedures.

I suppose the significant phrase in the below report would be "highly suggestive of malignancy".

*Doctor, hospital, and other identifying information has been made anonymous in order to preserve the privacy of those people and places.

This is the initial report from the needle biopsy they did that same day.  The phrase that most caught my eye here was "patient tolerated the procedure well without sequelae" but only because I didn't know what sequelae meant and my friends and I had a grand time making things up until I could get home and look it up in the dictionary:

se·quel·a (sĭ-kwěl'ə) n. pl. se·quel·ae (-kwěl'ē)
1. A pathological condition resulting from a disease.
2. A secondary consequence or result.