Hello all,

i’m in Cornwall and was recalled to the one stop breast diagnostic service centre.  I am supposedly having all tests on the same day except I didn’t and I am getting very jittery.  I received a letter asking me to come back as they couldn’t give me a clear diagnosis so immediately worried.  My appt was 2.30pm and ai was told in the letter it can take up to 4 hours.  So that all tests needed would be completed.  I went with a friend for support.  Was seen promptly at 2.30pm and had a discussion with a nurse and this seemed to be the only quick process on the day.  I was then asked to wait to see if they had room to fit me in for another mammogram on the right breast, then waited about 20 minutes for the mammogram.  The told to go back to waiting room and we waited for over an hour and a half with nothing happening (obviously other people being seen and going back, it was getting very frustrating and asking when I might be seen was met with kindness as they said there were so many people there today and one impatient stroppy woman who rushed up to me who inform me they did say 4 hours in the letter and as I’d been there 2 plus hours already she haughtily said then it will be another 2 hours, go get a coffee or something and walked away.  This really made me upset because that 4 hours was explained as needing further tests not waiting and waiting and waiting.  I also have a spine condition which makes sitting down for long periods extremely painful.  

My friend had to leave just before 4.30 and after she left I was called back in to have an ultrasound  where the radiographer said they’d found what looked like a cluster of cells which looked like a cyst. I had had a cyst drained there last year and it wasn’t that one although that had returned and they were not looking at that one’.  She tried aspirating it and two out of the three clusters did pop but the others didn’t.  I expected then to have a biopsy as it was now nearing 5pm when the clinic stops working but any remaining patients are seen.  I was told then that I had to come back a week later for a stereotactic core biopsy at 9am as they had held the slot, no slots available on the day so I have another week to wait, stressing and stressing and getting worked up over it and the procedure. The radiographer says in her opinion it is a cyst and they need a sample just to make sure and this is where I get really frustrated and frightened.  They rapidly said we will have you in the mammogram and we’ll take some samples while you’re in the machine, a clip will be added so we can find it again and it won’t set off any airport monitors!!

I rang the clinic next day to talk to a nurse as they say you can do and I was a bit all over the place as you have to leave a message and be called back, they called back saying they had managed to fit the jigsaw together of what I was asking (which I thought was rude) and that the biopsy is nothing to worry about, they will place a metal clip inside my breast to see where they’ve been and allow them to do further testing if needed.  I am not having a clip inserted as ai have to have regular MRI scans on my spine and I’m concerned that IF it is a cyst this thing will be inside me.  The nurse was only concerned in having the clip in as it makes it easier for them to trace where the cyst/cancer is.  

I am really at my wits end as they always treat me as an irritation, an awkward patient because I have other health concerns besides theirs and am left feeling like there’s something wrong with me, that I am holding everybody else up.  I am so fed up with nobody listening that I want to cancel the while rotten thing and just let whatever's in my breast do it’s thing.  This centre is meant to be excellent and world leading etc so why can’t they have these machines needed for biopsies (I have to have mine in a mammogram machine) available on the same day? They recalled me, they knew what it was they wanted, they knew it would be another mammogram and another ultrasound with biopsy yet it’s like everything on the NHS where they say everything is done on the same day, it isn’t and it is misleading.  

I am spiralling over this issue and don’t know what to do. I really am frightened that they will ride roughshod over my wishes.