I found a lump

So after our trip to Wyoming, I was getting ready for bed and let the "girls" out of their "harness" (translation: I took my bra off) and I think I speak for most women that this time of letting them loose after all day in a bra is quite freeing.  Gives you chills kind of freeing. Anyway it was at this time I looked down and something seemed strange on my right side.  So I felt...it was a lump and to me felt like a large lump.  (Confession: I never perform monthly self breast exams, I don't know why. I just don't think about it. So I don't do it.)  So the next day I called my Dr. they said I could come in the following day.  So I did...because once you find a lump, it's kind of just on your mind.  So I went to the Dr.  The P.A. checked the lump and confirmed it was there.  Said it would need to imaged or watched and checked again in 6 weeks.  She said that it felt smooth and round and those are generally  good signs.  But gave me the option of imaging or waiting.  So I said image it.  She said I would need a mammogram and an ultrasound so it got scheduled.  

Skip to the mammogram. I arrived at "breast imaging" and filled out my paperwork.  The nice ladies let me choose a special pink pen to commemorate my 1st mammogram.  Then the mammographer came to get me.  I got to put on this special shawl thing that had snaps in the front and taken into a cold room with a large machine.  The mammographer was very nice.  She told me that what would happen and what she was planning on.  Basically that she would take 3 similar pictures on both breasts and then a few extra on the right side only.  She had step up to a machine and unsnap my shawl so the right one was out...then she very gently told me to step up to the machine.  She gently grabbed the breast and laid it onto the bottom of a "shelf" then came the top....she put her foot on a controller and the top came down.  Picture a panini  press.  Like your breast is a lovely full french baguette sandwich.  Then it gets put into a panini press and the top comes down and just flattens this lovely sandwich.  That is what it was like.  Only it's about 20lbs of pressure squishing down.  To be perfectly honest I thought it would hurt much more than it did.  But it's just awkward and uncomfortable. The squishing parts are see through and that was not pleasant to look at.  In fact, I think I only looked once.  You have to hold your breath while the mamographer takes the pictures and releases you from the machines grasp.  Then you get to do it again.  Only it gets more awkward as the mammographer tries to get specific pictures of the "lump" and handles the breast to get it positioned in the right spot.  

The ultra sound was fine.  What's most frustrating is the techs and mammographer not telling you what they see.  So as I watch the ultrasound it seems like there is a large black mass with possibly a little white spot in it.  What could that mean?  I don't know because they don't say.

Anyway, I get to have a biopsy done.   I have a "solid lesion" that's about 14 millimeters.  I'll let you know how that goes.  Painful will probably be the best way to describe it.  1 in 8 women get diagnosed with breast cancer.  Am I exempt from that statistic?  No, I am not. But I really hope and pray I don't have cancer.