The past year has been different from what I anticipated. Last December I was scheduled for my final 6 month diagnostic mammogram. They had been following an area of concern for 2 years. Every single other mammogram had come back fine. But this time was different. This time after waiting for the all clear the radiologist told me that there were some calcifications that looked suspicious. Not that they had changed particularly. It was very hard to tell whether or not they had changed, since they were basically tiny dots on the image. She recommended a biopsy that I reluctantly scheduled for January. (I definitely didn’t want to meet my insurance deductible without any chance to take advantage of reduced charges later in the year!)
I left feeling mainly irritated. Biopsies are expensive, and I didn’t want to have to spend the money to be told that the tiny dots were nothing. I honestly felt like they wanted to get all the money they could out of my case since I wasn’t scheduled to have to come back for any more special mammograms after the most recent one. I talked to my husband, and we discussed canceling the biopsy. We were strongly leaning that direction.
But for some reason I didn’t. I can really only attribute it to the providence of God. I didn’t want the biopsy. I didn’t have the money to pay for the biopsy. But I never had peace about not doing it.
So January 11th came, and I dutifully went for my stereoscopic biopsy. I think it was the worst medical procedure I had ever had. I had to lie on my stomach on a table in a freezing room with my breast hanging through a hole. My arms were strangely positioned and my neck and head were twisted awkwardly. I was facing the wall and couldn’t see who was coming in and out of the room. They had to do a mammogram in that position, numb me, locate the right spot to biopsy, then extract the sample.
Following that, I went to another room for a mammogram to verify the location of the marker. Then I waited for the all clear to go home. When the doctor who performed the biopsy walked in, he said, “I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that we biopsied the wrong spot. The good news is that we can go right back in there and get the correct area right now.”
I did not take this news well. I lost my composure and assured him that I did not even know why I had needed the biopsy in the first place. After convincing him that I wasn’t against mammography in general, he left to look at all the previous mammograms for the previous 2 year period. He returned and said that while he didn’t biopsy the exact spot that was intended, it was similar to the intended area and he felt it would be a representative sample. I left and was relieved a couple of days later to find the results of the biopsy showed nothing of concern.
I was scheduled for a follow-up with a nurse navigator about a week after the biopsy. I expected the all clear, but was frustrated and confused when she said they thought I needed to repeat the biopsy.