The worst word in the English language...

lumpNot Cancer, strangely enough, but 'lump'.You see, Cancer is known. It is a 'thing' a thing which has a protocol, a plan which can be managed.  A lump is none of those things. It is just a lump; something which shouldn't be there and is.  Something which could be utterly benign, something which may just be a comma in the sentence of my breast which will go or it could be cancer, again.It's 2014, nearly 9 years after my diagnosis of Breast cancer 1 in September 2005 and I have another scare.A lump which appeared about three weeks ago in the 'other' breast. It doesn't 'feel' like cancer, if I can be that familiar.  It's soft, squishy: the other one was hard and robust against my fingers.  This mean that I encountered my standard appointment with optimism. Mammogram - check.Ultrasound - check.Doppler test (to check the blood flow around the lump. Cancer creates its own bloodflow to feed itself; cysts don't.) Check (ish) as there were flickers of colour delineating possible blood flow.Need for a biopsy (starting to squirm now.) Needle biopsies, I know about. A small needle put into the 'lump' under the guidance of the ultrasound. If it pierces the lump which then collapses, it's clearly a cyst and nothing to worry about. If it pierces the 'lump' which doesn't then collapse, it could be cancerous.The very kind doctor told me that needle biopsies had been disposed of and now it was just 'big sample' biopsies of which they needed to take three samples.  I...
Source: A Woman of Many Parts - Category: Cancer Authors: Source Type: blogs