Yesterday was an eventful day. I went in to the imaging center at 8am to get a wire placement. If you don’t know what that is (i didn’t either), it’s when they put a thin wire into your breast that points to the metal marker. This is helps the surgeon know the exact tumor location.

It started with an ultrasound to try and find the marker, but after 15 minutes the tech had to send me over to the mammogram room because she couldn’t find it. She even asked me if I was sure that they had placed a marker, and was it really the left breast? I wanted to give her a hug because she was getting frustrated and was a little grumpy.

Now I’m in the mammogram room with my favorite tech, the same one who was with me when this all started in April. Every time I see her she gives me a big hug:) They gave me a regular mammogram and they were able to find the marker – its shaped like a ribbon, pretty hard to miss.  Then the real fun begins, they put a different plate on the machine and played battle ship on my breast. They had to figure out where the marker was with a grid, and the whole time I’m stuck in this machine, smashed, sitting in a chair that’s pushing me forward and I can’t move.

So now it’s still all about not moving while you wait for the doctor to get get there. The doctor comes in and numbs my breast with a needle, then gets another needle (a hollow needle with a wire in the middle) and pushes it in toward the marker hoping that she is getting it to the right location. She pulls the needle out leaving the wire in and sticking out of me a couple inches.  Then they take another xray and oops, the wire is in the wrong spot! Wait, it gets better…she can’t pull the wire out because it has a hook on the end and has to be surgically removed. So now we have do this all over again – smash me in the grid, more images, another needle (well, a couple really because they numb me again) and another xray to make sure this wire is on target.

You’d think this would be over…but no, I have to get another mammogram just to be sure everything is ok. So for 45 minutes I was thoroughly smashed, poked, prodded and got thoroughly acquainted with the mammogram machine 🙂

Then I get to look at all the pictures of this mammogram and the previous ones and it was amazing to see the results – the tumor was gone! You can see for yourself in the image above 🙂

So now its 10am and it’s time to head over to the hospital for surgery. I’ve already posted an update on facebook, but really wanted to share these images with you because they are so amazing. The surgeon said he didn’t see any signs of a tumor when he cut me open. I’m still waiting for the pathology report and I’ll share those results with you all next week.

Thank you for your prayers and love!

-Tamika