Ultrasound room

As many of you know, I went for my first post-breast-cancer-treatment mammogram yesterday.  I was anxious on Sunday afternoon, but that feeling subsided as evening came on, and I actually slept well.  Since I’ve had several mammograms, I know the drill.  But I was worried about the soreness and tenderness I’ve been experiencing.  And about recurrence of cancer.

The mammogram techs were very gentle with me, though, and the experience wasn’t very painful.  But they couldn’t get a good mammogram picture.  I thought that the tenderness was at least partially because of the seromas that still haven’t disappeared.  It turned out I was right.  I had to wait for the tech to pull my surgeon out of surgery to get his permission for the radiologist to aspirate my breast seroma.  Once they got his permission, I went to another room for an ultrasound and aspiration.  My previous aspirations were in the surgeon’s office – no ultrasound device present.

Yep, that’s the needle in the seroma in the ultrasound pic.

But this time the radiologist had the ultrasound tech show him just where the seroma was and just where he needed to insert the aspiration needle.  Well, almost just where he needed to insert it.  Because one time he got outside of the seroma itself, and that really hurt.  This aspiration was not the record-setting 400 milliliters I had back in the spring.  It was plenty, though, at over 200 milliliters.  After the aspiration, the radiologist and I talked, and he said that I should continue with my scheduled appointments and come back for a mammogram in six months.   I hope that maybe the swelling will be gone by then.  Maybe.  It’s been around since my surgery in December, so who knows.

The radiologist came in punning with the word “aspiration,” saying I aspired to an aspiration.  I suppose I did.  And that was a much better possibility than finding something cancerous.  So even though it wasn’t a routine mammogram day, I’ll take it.

Many thanks to all of you who held me in your prayers and sent good thoughts and good vibes.  I felt all of that goodness flowing my way.   And I still do.