98%

Today I went to the doctor's office to have my lump checked out. It was a short appointment and my Physician's Assistant did a breast exam. She told me that she was 98% certain that my lump was just a fluid-filled cyst, and she "wasn't worried about it from a cancer standpoint." That was a real relief to hear after all the late nights worrying in the dark in bed, alone. She did take the situation seriously, however, and wrote an order for a mammogram and ultrasound. Because breast tissue is considerably more dense in younger women, a mammogram sometimes doesn't produce good images of what's going on, so an ultrasound is a better option.

I asked whether this was the sort of appointment that took a long time to get, and she unfortunately said it would probably be about two weeks before I could get my mammogram and ultrasound. I was disappointed about that because it meant more night of worrying,. But in the end, I got an appointment for the next day. How nice! Too bad it was my mom's birthday.

Given that it was mom's birthday, I knew I needed to tell my parents what was up. Plus, I wanted them to know, and since my PA was 98% sure it was nothing, now seemed like a good time. I was right; they said they would have wanted to know earlier, regardless of vacation. Oh well, I didn't want to ruin their time away with worries about their little girl. And since I really thought my lump was nothing, a told a couple more friends about my scare. Little did I know, this just made for more people to call and give bad news to.