SCANNED

Once again we’re sat in a busy x-ray department waiting for Sam’s name to be called, however, this time we have 2 little monkeys to keep amused whilst we waited for the time to pass. Trying to keep young children quiet is a nightmare if you’re surrounded by old and posh people. You know the kind of people I mean, the ones who stare and judge if a child’s voice goes above the sound of a whisper. Usually it’s not that stressful to keep them amused, but when you need them to behave themselves (or just sit quietly watching a video of Mr Tumble on your phone) they decide that, on this morning, no amount of cool tv characters or bribery snacks are going to work.

“I’m just going to take Charlie and Rosie for a lap around the hospital so that he has a change of scenery for 5 minutes. Won’t be long”

We were only gone 5 minutes but when we got back to our seats there was a buggy but no Sam.

“She got called in i’m afraid”

Bugger.

It had been 3 weeks since we’d last seen the consultant and eventually we received the appointment for the scan.

“I’ve got the date for my mammogram. I hope it’s not a bad omen but it’s on May 11th. The 2nd anniversary of your mum’s death”

“That’ll be a good omen then won’t it?”

“Who knows. Hope so”

It hadn’t been as bad as I thought it would be waiting for the scan date to come through, although we have gotten used to supressing our stress levels over the last year or so. I was just annoyed it was taking so long. I can’t fault the NHS for anything that they’ve done (they’ve been amazing) but when your name comes off of one list (cancer) and moves over to the other list (non cancer) then the time frames increase slightly. Ususally we would have got the date within a day or so and then it would have been for 2 days time. It’s not a massive increase, and I understand that under any normal circumstances this could even stretch to months, but it doesn’t help when you’re still dealing with the same issue. The worries are still there, but this time the naivety has gone so it kind of makes it worse (if you know what I mean).

Sam came out of the room and gestured for us to leave.

“How was it? Everything ok?”

“Yes all fine. She said the 3 lumps on the scar are just muscle and if I massage them then they’ll just eventually subside. The other lump is just a build up calcium (also known as calcification). Apparently it’s quite common in older women and tends to be harmless. Certain types of calcification can turn into cancer, but they’ll keep an eye on this one with regular mammograms. She said they’ll compare this mammogram to the one I had last year and if there’s any change then they’ll get me back in for a biopsy, but she doesn’t think I need to worry.”

Part of me wished that they had a taken a biopsy of the calcium lump just to be sure, because all you’re really doing is trusting the word of someone that everything is ok. Even though you come away really relieved, you still end up asking questions in your head. How do they know it’s ok? How do they know that it isn’t sinister? Shouldn’t they have delved slightly deeper? In the end you have to trust the experts because they do this every day and you could drive yourself crazy if you think too much about it. I mean, they spotted something wrong in the original lump after all. As it turns out, it seems I should have stopped asking questions because the following Monday the phone rang:

“Hi Sam, it’s Becky from the hospital. It’s nothing to worry about but we’ve compared the mammogram from last week to the one you had last year and I’m afraid there has been a change. This means that we need you back in for a biopsy. It’s probably just fibrous tissue but considering your history I think we need to investigate further just to be sure.”

Lesson of the week: Be careful what you wish for.