My Boob Job

Sorry I haven't written in nearly 2 weeks.  I've been a little busy.  Seems I have been remiss in my yearly visits to the women's clinic and this year I decided to catch up.  But what caught me by surprise was a couple of dark, shady characters that appeared mysteriously in the mammogram of my right boob.  Probably nothing the medical folks kept saying, but still we should look a little closer.  So I scheduled an ultrasound of my boob.  Imagine my surprise when I learned they now use a warm gel on the ultrasound wand.  Well, that picture didn't tell them anything more so the next best thing is just to go in a take a piece of it.  And then?, I asked.  Well, then we will know what it is and how to proceed. 

I just love an answer that really isn't an answer.  But now I had to know so I scheduled the biopsy for this week.  I mean, heck, I've got a retirement schedule all planned out, well at least the next 6 months, and no where on that schedule did I have any down time for medical procedures.  It was killing me to have to wait a week.  But I was confident.  There's no history of breast cancer in my family.  And back in 1992 I had a large lump removed from the same breast which turned out to be a benign non-cancerous tumor.  Besides all that, I just kept telling the medical staff I am old with fat, scarred boobs.  They are overreacting.  No, they said, we are erring on the side of caution.  Whatever.

So Monday my camper buddy Linda and I got lost and found again in Jacksonville traffic but somehow got to the clinic on time.  I will say that the staff I dealt with at Jacksonville Memorial were all very kind and understanding and did try to make the whole ordeal as pleasant as a thing like this could be.  But you try laying on your side with foam wedges shoved up into your back and your arm raised up and behind your head for 45 minutes while 2 grown women are sticking needles into your boob and pressing down really hard ("Sorry Dear but we need to get a really good image of what we are aiming at.")  When it was over and the doctor said I could put my arm down I had to confess that I couldn't feel my arm anymore.  The tech was kind enough to move it down to my side for me. 

Then they closed the holes with surgial super glue, bound me up in an ace bandage and stuck ice packs in the bandaging to keep the swelling down.  And then I went home to wait.  I pretty much just layed around for 2 days feeling like the loser in a bad bar brawl.  But this morning I went on over to the office and back to work.  We had to wash windows and screens in all the bathrooms and the empty cabins before the weekend rush hits.  About half way through the morning the nurse called with the biopsy results:  BENIGN Fibroid Adenomas.  Non-cancerous.   Guess that means my original retirement schedule is still on target.  Still, I do have some left overs from this:

2 small scars from where the biopsy needle was inserted.  I doubt I'll be showing those to anyone.
Lots of bruising but not as bad as I thought it would be
2 titanium tags

If you're doing a WTF reaction on that last one you're not alone.  I didn't read anything about that in the literature I was given.  But I have since learned that it is standard procedure for any breast biopsy now days.  Basically the doctor inserts this tiny titanium marker into the site where the mystery meat is removed from so that should they need to go in and remove that area they don't have to look too hard for it.  In my case there were 2 mysteries so I have 2 new pieces of hardware.  One is shaped like the breast cancer ribbon and the other looks like half the ribbon.  And they are mine to keep forever.

So of course I wondered if I would have to explain setting off the metal detectors at the airport.  My mind came up with some really strange scenarios there.  But it seems that so far they don't set off the systems in use today.  In a way I'm kind of disappointed. 

And that's the end of my boob job story.  I hope it made you laugh or at least smile.