Sorry for the lack of updates and posts of late. I haven’t had much mood to do blog the past couple of weeks due to a health scare I had. Over a month ago, I discovered a large lump in my left breast.

It really shocked me to bits because I didn’t remember having one the month before. Then again, I haven’t been regular in my self breast examinations so I really couldn’t say. Hubs had a feel at it too. It was a large, hard lump and easily movable. As I was about to leave for Malaysia in a few days, I decided to do nothing about it until I came back to Melbourne.

My mind was riddled with questions and anxiety throughout my holiday, and the first thing I did when I came back to Melbourne was to make an appointment with the GP. Needless to say, the GP was shocked and was pretty cross at the hubs and I for not getting this issue sorted out before our holiday. We were properly reprimanded, and truth be told, rightly so. The holiday could have waited, but any lumps in the breast cannot. He referred me to a radiologist to get a breast ultrasound, and I immediately made an appointment for it the very next day.

To say I was anxious is an understatement. I was a bloody wreck. I nervously joked to the sonographer that I did not expect my first ultrasound to be of the boobs 😛 After the ultrasound, the radiologist suggested a mammogram as well so that he could double check the scans. I don’t know if you’ve had a mammogram before but holy cow, it was painful. I likened mammograms to a woman, to a man being kicked in the balls. Or having his balls squished. As I was still relatively young and have dense breasts, mammograms would hurt (boobs getting squashed like pancakes? Hurts donkey nuts). The older you get, the less painful it would be. Thank goodness it’s only an annual thing.

Anyway, the radiologist looked at the scans and said there weren’t any calcifications or anything sinister. However to be certain, I had to have a core biopsy done. And so I did.

3cm wide mass

The biopsy was a piece of cake. I was expecting painful needles with the local anesthetic and such, but when the first needle went in, I didn’t even feel a thing. The second shot of LA stung a little. I looked at the ultrasound monitor the entire time, looking at the needle going into the mass. The whole procedure was done in about 30 minutes. The tissue he took out looked like worms 😛 Results would be out in a few days.

The waiting game was the worst. Needless to say, my mum was also a nervous wreck, texting me often, asking me if the results were out yet. I wasn’t too anxious about it because I had two radiologist specialists checking the scans and both concurred there wasn’t anything sinister about the lump.

I went back to the GP for the results, and it was a benign tumour. Thank God we did not hit the jackpot on this one. He referred me to a breast surgeon to see what is to be done with the lump. I want it removed, but I’m really, really not keen on general anesthesia, so I’ll have to discuss my options with the surgeon.

A few lessons I learnt throughout this health scare:
– Do monthly self-breast examinations. I got scolded by LeGeeque for not doing this regularly.
– A holiday can wait. Any lumps in the breast, big or small, should be addressed as soon as possible. I got scolded by my GP for this.

I’ll keep you updated on this, once I hear from the surgeon. If you’ve experienced this before, or have had a lump from your breast removed, I would really love to hear your input on this issue.