...and if wishes were horses, etc etc.
When I was in the bath last week, I dutifully did my monthly squish of round all the scars and around my groin and armpit lymph nodes, only to find a lump. A large, hard lump in my right breast...the same side the melanoma was on. It tends to stay on one side of the body. One phone call and 48 hours later, I was sat in the GP's office whilst two lovely lady doctors examined me. One of them was Catherine, the same GP to whom I went almost 11 months ago to the day, after discovering cancer mole.
"It doesn't feel soft enough to be a cyst," she said, with a neutral face that belied any concern, "but I don't want to make any guesses because it could be something or it could be nothing. So I'll make you a referral to the breast clinic under the two-week rule, just to get it scanned and biopsied."
The two-week rule exists both for melanoma and for breast cancer. The scan she referred to is a mammogram, ultrasound, or both. The biopsy will hopefully be a fine needle biopsy, whereby a fine needle (unsurprisingly) is guided into the lump and a small sample of cells withdrawn for analysis. It's possible, she said, that I will be given the results the same day.
"You're not going away for Christmas, are you?" she asked.
"Yes, actually," I replied, "I'm going to Moscow on the 14th of December for five days."
Her neutral mask dropped for a split second.
"Well, I'm sure they'll be able to work around it, they're very good like that. But, er, if they do need to proceed with immediate treatment, I would take it if I were you. You just need to be prepared to cancel the trip. We can write you an insurance note if need be."
Which would be great if I had insurance, but I don't. I got an online quote: "OH! You've had cancer recently?!" it trilled at me. "Moscow for five days post-cancer? That'll be £197 please." On your bike, Aleksandr Meerkat.
So I have an appointment on Wednesday 12th December at our local breast clinic. Hopefully I will get the results the same day. It appears to be a three-horse race, with the contenders as follows:
Horse 1 - Benign Bob. It could well be a fatty lump (no problem, leave it be) or a fibroadenoma, which is a benign tumour. Options are watch and wait, or a lumpectomy under general anaesthetic. Let's hope this horse wins.
Horse 2 - Bog Off Breast Cancer. Did I inadvertantly write "cancer" on my Christmas wish list instead of "kindle"? Obviously we don't want this. But it's not as bad as:
Horse 3 - Brown Bread Fred. AKA melanoma metastasis. Because that would mean the melanoma has spread; I'd be stage 4, terminal, and effectively dead. Sorry, I can dress it up for you if you like but that is the reality. There are drugs that prolong life after stage 4 MM diagnosis, but they do not cure it. There is no cure. It kills you, and usually within a couple of years.
That all may sound melodramatic, and the odds are that it's something benign. At this point, I would even take breast cancer with relative ease. I don't believe in God, but I have started to bargain in my head for it not to be a met. I know I'm not alone, and there are millions of other former cancer patients who go through this internal worry whenever they find a lump or a new mole. It sucks. But most of the time, it turns out to be nothing and it is just hyper-vigilism that meant they found it in the first place. So there we go. An update will follow when I have one.
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