As I have written in this post, in a random attempt of improve every aspect in my life, I booked an appointment with my GP to check the lump which has “lived” (without a residence permit, of course) in my left breast for quite a while.

The lump was actually not easy to feel if one doesn’t know where exactly it is. I had to show my GP the its “location”, and he agreed that it was probably not a “normal muscle”. This GP office has an ultrasound machine so he checked me. From the ultrasound image, my GP said that the lump looked quite normal, but he sent me to a specialist for mammography anyways. On my way out of his office, the GP didn’t forget to comfort me that it’s normal that lumps come and go in breasts, most of them (90%) are benign, so I should not be worried.

I was not worried at all.

As I said, I was always tired somehow but I have never had major health issues. I almost never caught a cold even in “high season”. Having covid-19 was actually the first time since I was in kindergarten that I had fever. And even I knew the lump was there, the thought of having cancer was just too distant for me.

That’s why although getting the appointment with the specialist quite quick, I did postpone it one week due to a business trip. The business trip was not super important though, it’s just… I felt like it was no rush with the mammography 🤷‍♀️

The mammography

But I finally showed up at the specialist office on 11th April 2024. The nurse who operated the machine checked me with her hands first. And again, she claimed that “there is no lump!” and looked at me like I was overreacting and unnecessarily consumed public fund without any serious problem. Like at the GP office, I had to show her exactly where the lump was. She agreed and began to do the mammography on me.

Of course they took mammography on both breasts. But oh my goodness, it was much much more painful when they did it on the left breast 🤦‍♀️ On the right breast, it was no discomfort at all! The procedure didn’t take so long. I was told to sit in the waiting room while the doctor looked at the images.

After 5-10 minutes or so, the same nurse came to me and said: “I am so sorry but I think we have to do it again, the images were not clear enough”. I began to be worried a little bit, it’s never a good sign that something is “not clear enough”, but most of all, I still remembered very well how painful it was to take the mammography pictures, and I didn’t want to do it once more time.

But I had no choice.

After the second round, I waited again for few minutes before I was called into the doctor’s room. Here, the doctor informed me that he found som suspicious “spots” on the images of my left breast. He would like to do ultrasound and take biopsy. I was scared but didn’t have much time to process the information while I followed the instruction of lying down on the bed. The doctor did the ultrasound quickly then he put the local anaesthetic on me, then he took the biopsy (3 different angles)…

Again, #$%#, it was soooo painful! 😣 Compare to this, the “pain” from mammography was actually just “discomfort”. He was quick though. Then the nurse helped me to wipe the blood, put a bandage on and give me some information about what kind of painkiller I can take at home if I have so much pain.

Then, I was sent home with a big… brochure of cancer treatment. I didn’t have anytime to ask any question. They just said the hospital would call me when they had the result ready. And actually I didn’t have any question neither. I was so shock, I still had pain from the biopsy, I was totally unprepared for this so my head was kind of empty. So I just put the brochure in my bags and left.

After I got out of the specialist’s office, the tears just came down from my eyes without any specific thought in my mind. The word “cancer” scared me, and the situation was totally unexpected to me. I came here not to hear that I (might) have cancer. I came here just to confirm what my GP said, that the lump was nothing dangerous. I came to “get this done” so that I could continue with other things in my life without worrying about that lump again.

Surprisingly, it was one of very few times I cried until now in this journey.

The cancer coordinator

Normally it takes only four days to get the result. However, I didn’t hear anything for a week. During that week, I tried my best to live a normal life. I went to work, hanged out with friends, I didn’t show any of my worries. I tried not to think about the C word at all, but it’s not easy to keep my mind away from it. I was worried, shocked but still had high hope that it was not cancer.

The waiting time was actually the worst. The uncertainty made me feel anxious all the time. I cannot share with anyone neither (not because I don’t have anyone to talk to, I just didn’t want to freak out everyone with an uncertain bad news). It was tired to hold the “normal positive attitude” while I just wanted to cry inside 🤐

Finally the wait was over. On the 19th April, while I was having lunch at work and thinking about what I would do during the weekend, I received a call from one who introduced herself as “the cancer coordinator”. This is a bad sign!

I can write more details about the healthcare system in Norway in another post if anyone is interested in it. In short, in Norway, if you get cancer, you will be assigned a “coordinator”. This person is often a nurse and has the task to coordinate all around your treatment. Cancer treatment often involves many different kind of specialists, the patient may also needs many kinds of help beside medical treatment, for example mental health, financial plan, help at home, ect. The coordinator will act as the single contact point so the patient does not have to figure out who to contact if there is any issue during the treatment.

The coordinator asked me many questions about my health, history of disease/illness in my family, my living condition, my financial situation, etc. She then said that the doctor would call me shortly to inform about the result from biopsy. I didn’t ask her if I had cancer, because I was quite sure that I did have, otherwise they would not assign me a “cancer coordinator” 😂 (and I know even if I asked, she was just gonna tell me that she could not say anything about that, but the doctor would call me soon).

The doctor didn’t let me wait long. She called and (calmly) informed me that they found cancer in the sample. She took good time to answer my questions, but again, I didn’t have many questions. I was calm, the result was kind of as expected, but my head was empty. Although I read some during the waiting week about breast cancer, the topic was too wide and not… personal enough for me to remember anything particular. So I just asked some basic questions like the prognoses, which stage it is and so on. The doctor answered all of my questions but also said that they didn’t get many details so I had to take other tests. However, she did say that, based on the mammography, the tumor appeared to be under 2 cm and hadn’t spread to any lymph nodes. That brought me some relief.

They also offered me to freeze my eggs so that if I become unfertilised after the cancer treatment, I can still have chance to have children. I said yes to this procedure and feel thankful that they mentioned it. Honestly, hearing that I have cancer was overwhelming for me, I didn’t know how the treatment plan would be, I had no knowledge about side effects of medicine on fertility, how could I be able to think about freezing my eggs?

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and I won’t give any medical advice. All I share on this blog is simply my personal experiences based on the treatment plan which was made specifically for me. However, if there is any topic you want me to share more about, please comment below 👇