Never make the radiologist laugh when he's got a tool that merited a Black and Decker logo inserted in your breast. Apparently not many patients ask if the needle biopsy will check for growth rings. Would the bruising have been slightly less colorful if I had kept my mouth shut? Probably not.
They may not have found growth rings but things did look sufficiently atypical to suggest an excisional biopsy (aka lumpectomy) might be wise. More colorful bruising and the recognition that I'm not driving a car for awhile. The driver's side seat belt puts pressure on the offended (violated?) boob that makes driving rather painful. I was lucky. No major post surgery pain but it is tender so it would be good to not annoy it more. Plus, of course, it's a handy excuse to not do anything. And the S.O. is stuck being a chauffeur for another week or two. Maybe three. Maybe all summer if I do enough whining.
The excised lump got sent to a lab downstate. My personal parasite appears to be an unusual enough tumor that the oncologist at the local clinic wanted a specialized lab to look at it. Once again my body decided to do something out of the norm. When we lived in Omaha Dr. Sltorious told me every time I saw him that he wished he had a student with him. I kept showing up with moderately weird stuff, things like a Bible cyst* or a blocked salivary gland, you know, stuff that wasn't life threatening, just odd or annoying but not super common. (Minor digression: Dr. Sitorious at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha was probably the best doctor I've ever had. Any med students, interns, and residents who were his students were lucky. The man was amazing.)
It's going to be another two weeks, more or less, before the biopsy results make it across the bridge. Should I worry? Maybe, maybe not. For now I'm going to focus on planning camping jaunts for this summer. We've never camped in Minnesota or the Dakotas. It would be nice to see Wind Cave National Park without having to count the steps, which was a remarkably boring task I got paid to do back when I worked for the National Park Service. I've always wondered what the cave looks like if you're not looking at your feet.
*The name comes from the traditional fix: slamming a humongous family Bible down on the cyst to flatten it. The cyst is a synovial cyst on the back of your hand.
Before you head to Wind Cave, call and make sure the elevator is running and you can actually go into the cave. Last time we tried, the elevator was closed :/. Of course, that was most of 2 years ago, but still….
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