Second Annual Mammogram

I had my second annual mammogram today and boy did it hurt! Today was a totally different experience. I wasn't nervous going to the hospital. I was quite calm and actually looked forward to this annual event of mine. It didn't hurt the last time so I was thinking it should be okay. Not!

Before the mammo started, the mammogram technologist named Eva and I talked about my breast cancer and how my first mammo results screwed up. ;) She reviewed my file and also looked at the images of my breasts from my last mammo. It felt weird seeing images of my puppies on the computer. I tried to find the tumor but I couldn't. Eva was surprised the mammo didn't catch the tumor because of its size. Her assessment was the person who did it last year didn't use a lot of "compression". Eva told me that she would use more pressure this time to get more accurate images. I can't help but wonder if more compression was done last year could they have detected the tumor? Eva also suggested that I get an ultrasound since the last mammo missed the tumor. Better safe than sorry. She got that right. I'm definitely going to push Dr. K to request an ultrasound, for my peace of mind.

So it began. Any woman who had a mammogram would know how uncomfortable and painful it is. Eva started on the left breast. The mammo technologist pulled, shoved, pushed, positioned my breast like it was a piece of meat. When the machine started to press on my breast, I felt the pressure getting worse. There I was standing, could not move, wasn't allowed to breathe and experienced painful pressure on my breast. The pain was so bad I started to cry. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was 10. If I didn't complain Eva would probably press my breasts like pancakes. The pain was worse on my right breast because it is still tender from radiation and it is still recovering from the surgery. It hurt so bad I was sobbing by the time Eva was finished. A couple of times she wasn't quite satisfied with the images so she had to take more pictures. Torture!

I cried because it really, really hurt, I think my breasts were traumatized! I also think I cried because it brought back bad memories when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It's like a complete 360. I started with a mammogram last year, got diagnosed with BC, received treatments and here I am again today with another mammo. Maybe a part of me was scared that they might detect something new. Another part of me was also scared because of possibly having another wrong diagnosis. I just hope and pray the results are normal. I'll get the results in two weeks. Keep your fingers crossed! :)