I'll start off by saying that my health continues to be fabsolutely groovy. That said, today's appointment with the surgeon didn't go the way I planned for it to (and man was I glad that I had a friend there with me). I expected that the surgeon would say that the fibroma in my driver's side breast was the same size as it was 8 months ago and that she was still fine with me opting not to have surgery and that we would follow up in 6 months. That is what she said last time. Instead she told me that there are actually two of them and that they are both slightly bigger than before and that she wants to remove them surgically this summer. I reminded her that in October, she was fine if I waited. She said that she was okay with that last time, but that she is getting less and less okay with that now. She said that I can continue to delay it, but that she will continue to monitor me and encourage me to have them removed. The only reason that she would stop doing that is if they got smaller, which she suspects is not happening.
She explained that she would suggest to remove any fibroma that is more than 2 cm. The small one is around 2.3 cm and the large one is between 2.9-3.2 cm. They are attached to each other apparently and are now visible through my skin.
So now I am left to think about what to do. 8 months ago I was fine with leaving things alone-largely because she seemed okay with that. Now that she is less okay I am feeling less okay.
I do not want to surgically invade an area of my body that could contain precancerous cells and expose them to the tender tissues that surround them. My mother is an 8 year breast cancer survivor, so this is a very real fear for me. It is one of the main reasons that I am tempted to leave well enough alone.
Oh yeah, some triggers that will make them grow that she warned me about:
*birth control pills=not applicable
*soy products=not applicable
*a large Tim Hortons hot chocolate with a splash of coffee=arrrrrggggggg (she actually said coffee or chocolate, but you know what I heard).
So now she is waiting to hear from me. I have no idea yet what I'm gonna decide.
**Some notes: the fibromas were found by mammogram. I elected to start getting mammograms at the age of 30 because of my mother's history. My fibromas are apparently not worth biopsying as they do not contain anything worth looking at. They will never, ever become cancer. The worst thing that they could do is get bigger, more painful and leave a bigger departure scar when they do get surgically removed.
