Today is the day and I had an awful nights sleep. Even in the middle of all this my sleep was disturbed by dreams of school. How can it be so all consuming that when you are dealing with a potential end of life scenario your mind is still in work mode?
GO has gone to work, he's on the early shift and is convinced he can pick me up and get me to my appointment by ten.
After spending the whole day with Mamilein at her appointment at Easter I am better prepared today and pack a picnic of sorts. The letter says that from initial appointment to going home can take up to four hours.
As I get into the car I can hold it in no longer, after weeks of bottling it up I look at GO and as tears stream down my face I manage to whisper "I'm scared." As he's driving he holds my hand gives it a squeeze and says "I know, but whatever this is we're in it together."
We arrive at the hospital half an hour early, then begins a thirty minute farce of finding the right department. We follow the signs for the hospital and then start looking for outpatients (which is where my letter tells me to go), the sat nav can only take you so far. After a few minutes I give up and ask a couple of ladies for directions. Turns out that we were at the wrong site. Our spare time is ticking away as we make our way over. GO makes a wrong turn I can wait no longer so get out and run. The automated system doesn't work, I ask the receptionist who says I need to be at surgical outpatients which is across the road. Back in the car we race back to the first site and can't find the way to the main entrance so again I hop out and run for any open door. I am close but still not where I should be. Finally I make it to the receptionist panting "Am I where I should be?" Yes she smiled, handed me some leaflets about the Breast Clinic and tells me to wait.
I am feeling sick. I send GO a text
and wait for him to arrive, hopefully before I get called in.
When I am called in I am asked lots of questions about my medical history and when I found d the lump. I am then assessed by the consultant how pulls and prods and asks me where I feel the lump. I show him and he has a quizzical look on his face. "Hmm he say that's not in your breast that is your skin!" I sent some tests.
First of all I am taken for a mammogram, it won't hurt the radiologist says. It doesn't hurt but it's not a pleasant experience. Quick as a flash I'm done and back in the waiting room. Then I have a scan, the new radiologist (a much more smiley lady) asks me about my lump, makes a mark on it and then scans it. She stops and begins to ask me questions about it saying that she can see a tiny cyst and did it ever have a head on it like a spot? I can't really remember I have obsessed over it for 23 days now but can't remember anything about it at that precise moment. I mention that while we were camping a bee flew into my top but I can't remember if it stung me. She is interested but says that it has nothing to do with it. She says she is going to look at the other scans and I'll be right back.
So this is it, in this room that hasn't been decorated since 2001 with a hideous combination of wallpaper and border and a pictures of six little children climbing over a fence while a shaggy dog sits and watches, not doubt in judgement, I will hear my fate.
Radiographer comes back in and says it looks like it is a sebaceous cyst that has filled fluid. That's it I'm done. I ask what happens next, I have to go back to outpatients to get me results (hasn't she just given me them?) and take to the consultant. I ask if that's it, she says if it was bigger then they may drain it but even then puncturing the cyst opens it up to infection. Ok I say. I mumble something about listening to those who told me not to worry and walk back to outpatients.
I wait in outpatients to talk to the doctor for over three hours before he calls me in to say "there is nothing to worry about it's only a cyst." Three hours waiting two seconds in with the consultant, at least it was good news.
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