Finding the First Lump

Finding the first lump was a total fluke. It wasn’t because I was doing the heroic thing of performing a self-exam, like all women should do. Given my family history of breast cancer, you’d think this would be something I was already doing. I could come up with many excuses as to why I wasn’t doing them. I mean, it’s never going to happen to me anyway, right?

While laying in bed a few nights after having my blood drawn to check for BRCA mutations, and reached over to my nightstand when my hand gently gazed the top of my chest. Much to my surprise, I felt a lump. And by lump I actually mean a gum-ball sized mass.

GUMBALL

I made an appointment the very next day to see a nurse practitioner as my family doctor wasn’t available until the following week. Laying there on the exam table I had thousands of things racing through my mind. Is it cancer? What happens next? When she walked in she sorta blew off my accusations of having such a large lump. She gave me this “we’ll just see about that” attitude.

Everything quickly changed once I laid back and lifted my arm in usual breast exam form. She started her exam and suddenly her eyes grew big. The only words out of her mouth were “that’s not a gum ball, that’s more of a golfball” and left the room. Fast forward to her handing me a ton of referrals for a mammogram, ultrasound and a breast surgeon.

A freaking breast surgeon?!

I met with a breast surgeon first who performed an ultrasound and told me it was a cyst and it was begin. He was able to drain it right then and told me we would know more after the mammogram.

I must admit, after draining the cyst I felt so much better. Found a lump, had it looked it and it was now drained. Problem solved! Or so I thought…

Then I found another lump. And another.

Fast forward to my first mammogram.

And the real journey began. Stay tuned…