I had a routine screening mammogram on 5/7/12 at the mobile mammogram unit (a mobile home that travels around the Swedish Neighborhood Clinics in Seattle) for Swedish Comprehensive Breast Center. By early the next week, the main Swedish office called to schedule a diagnostic mammogram, which I had on 5/17. I underwent the mammogram and an ultrasound. On the same day, the radiologist who had completed the mammogram told me that there was a very small area of tissue in my right breast that didn’t look like the rest of the tissue. She recommended an ultrasound guided biopsy. I had the biopsy done on 5/22.

Today is May 24th. At about 10 am, the radiologist called to tell me the results of the biopsy. As soon as she identified herself, I figured that the biopsy showed malignancy. Why would they have a physician call with news that the results were benign? That’s a lot of phone calls plus people receiving that happy news probably wouldn’t have technical questions. Anyway, the doctor, whose name still escapes me, told me that I have the most common kind of breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma. Based on the imaging, the size of the tumor appears to be 1 cm but they won’t really know until surgery.

Within an hour, I was contacted by Dr. Beatty’s office to schedule a 1 1/2 hour long consultation about surgery, at 10 am tomorrow. I was happy to hear that I was referred to Dr. Beatty as he was highly recommended to me by my friend, Nancy, a cancer survivor and fellow psychologist who worked for four years overseeing cancer support groups in Seattle. When I told her what I knew, she was extremely reassuring and said (paraphrasing a bit), “Your cancer sounds straight-forward and boring. All of the surgeons at Swedish have done thousands of surgeries like this.” Then she said, “Well, I know it’s not boring to you” but I said, “I like to hear that my cancer sounds boring.” I do not want to be the star of a medical text book, no thank you. Nancy also offered to change her client schedule to be at the surgeons appointment with us. I am so grateful.

The last fact for today is that my hubby and I decided to wait until tomorrow to tell our 13 year-old daughter about this. We don’t want to tell her today and then send her off to school tomorrow. I hope the conversation goes as well as can be expected.