Thursday, May 20, 2010

Four Years Cancer-Free!

I have been felt up by two different doctors, had a mammogram and blood tests, plus an overall physical. No signs of cancer. Yea!!!!!!!!!! The mammo technician, though, gave me a scare, saying I have calcifications on the breast that had the cancer and doctors have been watching them because they can be a sign of early cancer. "Oh, great," I thought. I asked my surgeon who explained that I do, in fact, have calcifications in my affected breast, caused by the trauma it has gone through. "Most of the women I see have calcifications," he said. Mine are dispersed and stable--they have not changed in four years. Most important, they are not clustered. Clustered calcifications can be a sign of early cancer. According to my surgeon, though, they lead to cancer about five percent of the time, which means even if mine were micros, I still had a 95 percent chance they were not cancerous. Why did the tech mention that and why did she mention it the way she did? I swear, people need to think before they speak far more often than they do.

So I learned something new. I guess I have been oblivious to this, or else nobody thought to mention it to me. Whatever the case, four years cancer-free! Time to celebrate.

4 comments:

rachel. said...

YAYAY! congratulations to you and your healthy life. that's great great news.

Susan said...

Congratulations Patricia! You lead the way.
Susan

Lynda said...

Congratulations! I know you wonder why the tech brought this up, but I'm glad you mentioned it. I'll be going to Denver next week for my mammo and ultrasound.

Patricia Prijatel said...

Lynda: In retrospect, I realize the question should have been, "Why did the doctors not tell me about this?" Good luck with the tests, Keep me updated. Pat