It occurred to me that over these last posts I left out a rather important piece of information. How I figured out something might be wrong in the first place.
I mentioned that when 4 doctors went to second base on B- while in the midst of my testing, none of them felt a lump. And all women are told to do self-checks to feel for lumps.
So this goes back to May. The day before I ran the Buffalo Marathon. We were staying with my cousins. I decided to hop in the shower. I took off my bra and noticed a small stain like dried blood inside the cup. So I'm looking at myself and I don't see anything, no cuts, scratches, I certainly don't shave there...
So I squeezed gently at the nipple, and out comes a pink/orange blood-tinged ooze. And naturally, I'm like,
"Oh that ain't right."
I'm not nursing anyone here. Nothing should be coming out of here anymore! This doesn't occur on the right side.
So after the shower, I sit downstairs and do what anyone would do-
Google the shit out of it.
The differentials are from the mild... to the cancer..... Dr. Google thinks everything is cancer.
Exactly what I want to read before I need to go RUN A GODDAMN MARATHON. I need all my mental focus to just not shit myself by mile 19..... or 2.
Regardless, I put it in the back of my mind through the marathon. And running a marathon makes you forget a whole bunch of stuff. Like your name. I finished with a smile and a release of tears. It's so emotional! I was so proud of what I had just done. Chris had finished a while before me and was there to greet me and all I said was, "I want to go home." Skip the post-run beer, I sure as hell wasn't getting any time awards, I just wanted to go home. It was ah-mazing.
I had postponed my physical from February to early June because of training. It's interesting to think now the pieces that fell into place and the timing to how I discovered this. I wouldn't have noticed anything in February, and would have had nothing to say to the doctor out of the ordinary. I can't even recall on breast exams at the doctor or gyno if they squeeze your nips to check...
So with the physical in June I mentioned the discharge (another one of those 'ew' words). It was consistent. Don't think I wasn't now regularly squeezing that thing to see if it was still happening or I had imagined it. She cultured it and it was negative for whatever it could be positive for I don't even know. My gyno thought it was likely a 90% chance of being a papilloma - a benign growth affecting the duct, easily handled with a small surgery. But that kicked off the blood work (negative) and mammogram with ultrasound. Small calcifications, enlarged ducts, but nothing that screamed "TUMOR" till the biopsy. And it was not the 90%.
So lesson is - breast self-exams AND squeeze your nips! My surgeon mentioned that even if you aren't nursing, yellow or whitish discharge can be physiologic. But blood is well, blood. And not every blood (or serosanginous - word of the day) is cancer. But definitely worth the follow-up.
But this raised my question to the doctors about the future. Especially after the mastectomy and the fact that margins were positive so there is SOME very small chance of local recurrence - though lowered with radiation.
"How do I know anything is there when I had no lump and now I'm nip-less, i.e. nothing to squeeze and see??"
Basically it comes down to mammos on B+, and MRI's on B-. Skin changes can occur so still self-checks are a good idea, but basically the MRI and I will become pals. I'll take that day to be nervous as shit that "this is the time something shows", but otherwise keep filling my brain with the good stuff: runs to do, yoga moves to not break my neck with, coffee, wine, books, friends and family, wine....
But this is kinda true too,
It's all gonna be ok.
