Hey everyone, I hope you all are well.
I’m going to start this from the beginning to give you all a bit of context.
Pretty much one of my scariest fears has happened yesterday and I’ve been in distress.
On Friday morning, I decided to do a breast examination couple days after my period finished. This was because during the night I saw a post of a Woman who passed away at only 26 due to a rare form of Breast C she had which is known as IBC. She left behind 2 kids. As I was doing the Breast examination I felt something on my left breast, the area on near the outskirts of the areola I’ve been worried and fixtated on it the whole day and was even crying. My Aunt took me out later that day to not focus on it. During the weekend, I tried to not focus on it too much even though I would see myself trying to touch on that area, I started fixtating on something else.
On Monday, I started to fixtate on a specific part under my left breast because right under it there was a red line but under the right breast it isn’t as visible. This is like the under boob part where the breasts starts.
Fast forward yesterday, I booked an appointment to see the doctor. I told the doctor, the doctor called in another senior doctor at the GP and a female chaperone to make me comfortable, to which I allowed. The doctor explained the procedure and then asked if I was comfortable to proceed to which I said I was.
The doctor asked me to squeeze my nipples to see if any discharge was coming out of both and there wasn’t (which is a good sign). They then felt my arm pits and then my breasts, I told the doctor about the part I was concerned about, the senior doctor did feel my left breast and he also felt something, said it was 1cm long, they both had a feel of it.
Afterwards they discussed as I was getting dressed and the main doctor I had the appointment with told me they felt something. It’s kind of like a vertical shape like a line. I started breaking down crying, he said it was pretty immobile and deep within the inside rather than attached to the skin but he will send a referral to the Breast clinic where they will look into it. Referrals here might usually take two weeks from what I was told by someone else later on but he did say he wasn’t sure how long it will take for them to get back to me.
He said that I’m young so it’s good that I was able to do examination on myself and point it out, he said to not assume the worst but it’s just so difficult when you’re told about something you fear so much. I was really hoping they told me it’s just a tissue or a muscle or something completely harmless just so I can go home with a peace of mind, instead it happened to be the opposite of what I hoped for.
I’m 23, I feel like I haven’t lived life yet, I want to explore, I want to have amazing new experiences and opportunities, I want to find someone I love one day and settle down with them. I want to live a long, harmonious, beautiful and healthy life free of scary things.
What do I do now? What’s next? I don’t know what’s going to happen in these next few weeks, I don’t know what to expect. I have terrible health anxiety and Google is the last place to seek reassurance but a lot of places just aren’t saying good things.
I’ve been crying a lot yesterday - it’s been an emotional one. I’m just nervous, I just want everything to be okay.
Even today I’ve been crying, I can’t get my mind to think about anything else. I’m just so sad. The GP asked for me to collect the referral letter today - I was referred to the Breast Clinic and it would be a 2 week wait. They told me if I don’t get a call by the 16th June to then ring them but they would most likely will ring me before then to arrange an appointment. I feel like I’ll be so anxious waiting, I don’t know how to spend the time I have to wait, it’s just going to be difficult for me to go about my life. I never thought I’ll have to deal with this during this time of my life and yet it happened. My Health Anxiety has been pretty high within the past year and I’ve been recently trying to regulate and get it in control and this happens.
I can’t even distract myself because my mind is just so far gone and fixtated on this situation. Any advice or support during this time will be great.
