Let me backtrack a little bit…
Picture it: Dubai, 2016.
(Sophia from The Golden Girls is my favorite)
I decided to get my first mammogram because I was 42 and knew that my aunt had breast cancer in her early 40s.
I had no idea what to expect, but the mammogram actually wasn’t nearly as painful as I had imagined. I also had an ultrasound, and the report came back saying they had found a suspicious cyst with irregular edges and recommended a biopsy.
The timing couldn’t have been worse because I moved to Oman the very next day for work.
After I got settled, I tried several times to schedule the recommended biopsy, but I kept running into problems getting an appointment. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, I eventually convinced myself that maybe this was a sign from the Universe that I shouldn’t have the biopsy done in the Middle East and should just wait until I got back home to America.
I returned to Las Vegas in May 2017, but didn’t have health insurance until January 2018. Then I moved to San Diego for work, where my job at a small startup didn’t provide health insurance.
2018 was kind of a crazy year. My life felt like it was in limbo. I was renting two apartments—one in Vegas because I couldn’t break my lease and one in San Diego—and driving back and forth between the two for much of the year.
I still had it in the back of my mind that I needed to get that suspicious cyst checked out, so I finally had another mammogram in June.
They didn’t find anything. They only told me that I had really dense breasts.
Immediately after that mammogram—which hurt like hell this time—I felt something pop out of my left breast. It felt like a cyst to me because it was spongy and super tender. My sister also has fibrocystic breasts, so I thought, That has to be what this is.
At this point, not one part of me was thinking about cancer, even knowing about my aunt’s history.
Fast-forward to 2019.
I was finally back in Vegas for good, got health insurance in September, and started making all of my overdue doctor appointments.
I saw my primary care doctor on October 14 and showed her the lump in my breast.
She was immediately concerned.
She told me it didn’t feel like a cyst to her. It felt more like a mass, and it was quite large.
Looking back, I remember the expression on her face. She was looking at that area like she was seeing something scary, while I was still completely blasé about it.
She was very adamant that I get a mammogram and ultrasound right away.
That was probably the first time I thought, Uh-oh. Maybe this isn’t a cyst.
But even then, the thought of cancer really didn’t cross my mind.
The first available appointment I could get was on Halloween. I even made a sick joke that maybe I could dress up as a mammogram machine because I’d once seen some guy do that as a Halloween costume.
The mammogram itself was awkward because the lump was so large that the technician had to work around it because pressing directly on it would have been too painful.
Afterward, I went in for the ultrasound.
The ultrasound tech came to get me and she was so unpleasant. She practically yelled, “Let’s go!”
I was like, Who, me?
We got into the room, and she told me to expose my left breast and lie down.
As she was doing the ultrasound, I could tell she had found something. She kept going around the lump and then examining my left armpit.
And suddenly, her entire demeanor changed.
She started talking really nicely to me.
That made me suspicious.
What did she find that made her suddenly change the way she was treating me?
She told me I needed to wait while she sent the images to the radiologist.
Within a few minutes, I was speaking to the doctor on the phone.
She told me the mass was very suspicious and that, given my family history, I should prepare myself for the probability that it was cancer. I would need a biopsy to confirm it.
She also told me they had found two suspicious areas in my lymph nodes.
I asked her:
“It’s not a cyst?”
She said no.
It was definitely a mass.
After I handed the phone back, the ultrasound tech started telling me all the things I needed to do next—schedule the biopsy right away, make sure I followed up, and probably several other things I don’t remember.
I wasn’t really processing anything she was saying anymore.
I was in shock from hearing the word cancer.
The tech was actually very kind to me by the end, and of course now I understood why her demeanor had changed.
But even then, part of me was still thinking…
Maybe—just maybe—it will be benign?
