Lets talk Breasts

Yesterday in the bath I discovered a lump in my left breast and panic mode set in. I felt sick and my legs were shaking and I kept thinking for goodness sake, why me again.

I googled the shit out of it trying to find reassurance in the meantime, I came across some information that said women under 50 that have no family history are at very low risk of it being cancerous and that 9 times out of 10 it is just a cyst or hard breast tissue which helped a little bit.

Only 1 year on since I got the all clear from my test of cure for my cervical screening as if that wasn’t scary enough and now I find this! I was having a bath with my 3-year-old daughter and I had told her mummy is just getting out quickly to get a hairbrush but secretly I ran for my phone to call the doctors. My doctor surgery is brilliant I always manage to get an appointment on the same day and they had a slot available at 1.30pm with a nurse practitioner.

Clock watching and constantly feeling the lump I was getting more anxious, I just wanted to get to the doctors and get checked. My appointment soon arrived and I got called in. I explained to the nurse that I have been obsessing over feeling for lumps and worried that I have not been checking correctly because of my implants. I explained about my hypochondria which she knew already from previous visits.

She did a physical examination and told me it was nothing to worry about, the look on her face whilst she was examing didn’t look concerned in the slightest, however, I wasn’t convinced by what she was saying and I must have asked her about 50 times ‘are you sure you felt the actual lump?’ ‘Do I need a scan just to make sure? ‘So it’s not cancer?’ ‘are you absolutely sure?’ and she was adamant there was nothing to worry about so I accepted it was fine.

Then we discussed my health anxiety and how bad it is getting again, I even asked her if they could just remove my boobs so there was no risk of getting cancer.  My mind is a mess and I am so tired of being scared of dying all the time I am sick of seeing cancer posters everywhere on billboards, on tele, or social media, It has been 3 years since I read a magazine.  Then I asked her If I could be going through early menopause because I get hot all the time but she explained that was doing to my anxiety so we discussed upping my dosage to 100mg a day

When I got home I just felt drained from all the worrying that I just wanted to go to bed and sleep so as soon as I could, I did and David came up to cuddle me till I fell asleep.

8.30am on the dot I was calling up my Doctor surgery AGAIN and booked an appointment with my Gp this time so he can give me a second opinion. Now my Dr is lovely, he knows about my health anxiety so when I arrived for my appt at 9.30am he called a chaperone in and conducted another physical exam on both my boobs, I showed him where I felt the lump and he felt it too and again instantly told me there was nothing to worry about, It the ridge on my implant or just a bit of hard breast tissue. This time I left feeling reassured.

You should be checking your breasts regularly, every time you have a bath or a shower. Familiarise yourself with how they look and feel so you can easily detect any abnormalities.

If you do find any abnormalities, Please go to see your Gp straight away.