Best Of

I’ve been reading for a while and decided to join earlier in the week. I live in New Orleans , Louisiana. I, fortunately, already had a breast doctor to whom I was referred by a NP friend of mine because I have fibrocystic and dense breast. I’ve been a patient of his for almost seven years. In the beginning, I would get a mammogram and then about six months later, an ultrasound. About two years ago, I was getting annual 3-D mammograms. Results were almost always identical. All good. In early September of this year, my husband said he felt a lump in my breast. I said, it’s fine, I have lumpy breast - haha. Two days later on Saturday , September 6, 2025, while showering, I felt a huge lump on the very top of my left breast. I told my husband, I felt a lump and I’m scared. I had to wait until Monday and I called my breast doctor (who is actually a surgical oncologist - I never paid attention to that). His office had me come in immediately which was Tuesday, September 9. He is affiliated with Tulane University and he teaches medical students. I was first ushered into the mammogram room and had a very thorough mammogram. After the mammogram, I went into another room and had an ultrasound. My physician always asks if it’s okay to have students present and I’m fine with that as we have child who is an MD. As the technician was performing the ultrasound, doctor was speaking with the students, no so much so that I’d be too concerned, but I was hypersensitive to every single thing that was happening. First, the technician was going over and over the same area and taking so many pictures that I knew something was amiss. I was scared. I got dressed and my doctor had me come to his office. His demeanor was not his usual jovial self. He told me I needed to have a biopsy. He said about 95% of tumors turn out to be benign and I was scheduled for the biopsy on September 15. I went back to his office and went back to the ultrasound room and he, the technician and a student began performing the biopsy. He spoke to me about what to expect, what they were doing, punch noise, placing a clip in ancillary node and breast tumor, etc. He told me he’d be send a prescription for pain medication to CVS just in case I needed it. I got dressed and returned to his office. Again, he was somber. He’d be a lousy poker player. He told me it would take about a week or so to get the results. I looked at him and said, “you’ve been doing this for 40+ years so I know you know even without the results.” He looked down and then looked straight at me and said he was 95% sure it was a malignancy. I burst into tears and he got up and gave me a hug. I left and began the longest 10 days of my life awaiting the results. During this time, I cried a lot and tried to continue to study and complete my certifications, etc.

I am a healthcare insurance agent and Annual Enrollment Period would begin on October 15. I am licensed in eight states and chose this year to add a couple other plans to my portfolio to be able to offer my clients more options (this was before I knew about the struggle I’d be going through). I remember one morning dropping to the floor screaming and crying and I needed to get my $hit together because I had an in person training to attend that morning. My husband would be at work when I had these bad breakdowns, but I also had a lot of crying spells in front of him, too. I did get dressed and took care of business.

My husband and I went to see doctor on September 24, and I received my official diagnosis. I had IDC. It was HR-, but HER2 was pending.

I have to run, but will continue this later,

Thanks y’all!

Sorry to read the news that you will be staying around here. You deserve to take the day off.

My onco doc said that hormone negative BC is very responsive to chemo. I didn't have that much chemo, but I did have a year of Herceptin.

Done writing for a while.