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Early-stage breast cancer
From Someone Full of Surprises, Discovering Hope: My Personal Choices For Breast Cancer Treatment
Decisions, Decisions
When they called me back recently for a second mammogram, I wasn’t worried. Twenty years ago, while still perimenopausal, I had a second mammogram to examine a lump the size of a golf ball.
Yes, it had been a few years between mammograms. Don’t be me.
They wanted to come back to do a needle biopsy to have the golf ball tested. Instead, I immediately contacted a surgeon, had it removed and tested, and it was benign. Getting what you want from the medical field was easier twenty years ago. Yearly mammograms since have been clear.
Until the week before Thanksgiving this year. The doctor called to have me come back. I received a second mammogram that week. It showed a tiny mass surrounded by calcifications.
Calcifications are strong indications that a mass is cancerous. They are the body’s way of keeping the cancer contained. Yay body. So they called me back in the Monday before Thanksgiving and did a needle biopsy.
The needle biopsy showed the malignancy, and the lab work indicated a sensitivity of the cancer cells to estrogen and, less so, to progesterone.