Surgeons and Naps

Before I lie down for the longest nap of this century, let me fill you in briefly on the day.

First of all, I was so blessed by all the messages greeting me when I got home a few minutes ago; thanks to each of you who took the time to send an encouraging word, a virtual hug or a long distance prayer.

There is good news and bad news:

The good news is that a secondary suspicious, cancer-related issue that had been mentioned turned out to be a "no go," representing nothing at all to worry about. Whew!

However, when the surgeon put my films up on the light board he said, "Uh, HUH."

Translated to mean, "My, my, my, my."

What he saw was a large number of microcalcifications in several different areas on the left side. From what I understand, macrocalcifications can show up in anyone and are very rarely a sign of cancer.

On the other hand, microcalcifications can sometimes be a sign of cancer, but not always. Certain patterns of calcifications, however— such as tight clusters with irregular shapes — can indicate breast cancer.

It seems the radiologist who read my mammogram is worried about the shape of the calcifications. The surgeon who examined me today is concerned that the extensive array of microcalcifications on this recent mammogram were nowhere to seen on the one I had just six months ago. And since calcifications are usually slow growing, this is obviously a reason for some worry.

Bottom line is that he told me he was going to go ahead and schedule a biopsy, and whether the calcifications were benign or malignant, he was still probably going to recommend having them all surgically removed at a later date, just because he would feel a bit "safer" that way.

They had an opening to come in on Friday but we already had a Board Dinner scheduled at our house and since that took a good deal of maneuvering to get the schedules of fourteen people to align, we we didn't want to change that.

Instead, I'll be going next Monday morning for the biopsy and will go back to the doctor the following Monday for the results.

So now you know what I know.

And now I'm going to bed.