Thursday, January 1, 2009

A Green Pea

This is an update from a blog I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I had a mammogram in December that showed some abnormal tissue, so they called me back in to have a more thorough mammogram and an ultrasound. A breast ultrasound is recommended for women whose breast tissue may be very dense, such as mine.

A green pea size cyst showed up in my left breast that is about 2 1/2 inches deep into the breast and located at about 10 o'clock and close to my chest wall. Because it is so deep and my breast is very dense, I would have never found this cyst from a self exam (not that I've been doing those either). It showed up perfectly on the ultrasound. The good news is that the cyst is characteristically a simple cyst and the doctor doesn't want to do anything to it. We will just watch it and I'll make sure I don't skip any more mammograms!

IF I had had my yearly mammogram last year when I was supposed to, we would be able to get a better idea of how long the cyst has been there. I can only go forward from here and make sure I don't skip another one. I can also do self exams to be aware of any changes in the breast. I think I'm pretty lucky.

Get your mammograms, ladies. Don't EVER skip one because you've never had anything wrong.

* Breast cancer hits 1 out of every 9 American women.
* There are 100,000 new cases each year; the majority are women between 40 and 70 years old.
* It is the leading cause of death in women aged 40 to 55.

No comments:

Post a Comment