Tests, tests and more tests

For the next three weeks I feel as though I live at Northwick Park Hospital.

First I have an MRI which involves lying on my front with my breasts dangling into, what is best described as two copper wire lined yoghurt pots. The procedure is painless but quite noisy.

A week later I go to the hospital admissions department where they weigh me, fortunately in kilos thus saving me from knowing exactly how overweight I am, measure me, take my temperature, take my blood pressure, take some swabs from my nose and throat and take some blood. They also give me a long list of things I need to do the day before I come in for my operation.

Later the same day I go for another ultrasound. This is because the MRI has picked up some more tumours and they need to take another core biopsy. This is not possible because it is difficult to differentiate between the original tumour and the new one.

It is at this point that the spectre of a mastectomy raises its head! Apparently I have several small tumours and because they are scattered around, a lumpectomy is unlikely to be an option as I would end up looking like Swiss cheese. To say I am in shock would be putting it mildly.

The medical profession are excellent at telling it like it is, if it is bad news they don't flannel you. However, this "bluntness" can really knock you for six, if you have no inkling of the bad news to come. Not sure how they could get round that one.

So I am schedule for another MRI two days before I go on holiday so the consultant radiologist can do an MRI guided vacuum assisted biopsy.

Once again I am lying face down, dangling in the "yoghurt pots". The procedure takes a long time, about 1 hour all told I think. I have to lie very still for the duration of the procedure, even when the delightful consultant radiologist is skewering me. I have had a local anaesthetic but it is still extremely uncomfortable to say the least.

Straight after my MRI I go to see the Breast Care Nurse who goes through lots of stuff about operations, lumpectomies and mastectomies, breast forms, one for immediately after a mastectomy and others for longer term use, breast reconstruction, treatments, the list seems endless. I think I might be suffering from information overload.

The results of the MRI biopsy will arrive while I'm in France. I tell the nurse that she can leave a message as to whether I am to have a lumpectomy or mastectomy on my answerphone. I hope it will be the former but I know deep down I will have to have a mastectomy.