BENIGN!!!

 The results are in: Benign!!!

I've been back in Israel since Sunday, late afternoon. I was fine through Monday afternoon, realizing nobody was working in America until 5 p.m. my time. I figured the doctor would call that night and I'd leave my phone on in case she did. However, I fell asleep at 7:30 that night but awoke at midnight--too groggy to realize my phone was in airplane mode. There were no messages when I turned it back on. 

Tuesday I took a nap from 4-7 p.m. and called the doctor after Bible study ended at 9. I was super nervous. Nothing yet. Please keep in mind I am utterly exhausted at this point and ended up crying on the phone to the nurse, who said she would call the imaging center to check on it and call me back. I never heard back from her. I slept from 9:30 until 2 a.m., just in time to watch TCU get trampled in the National Championship game.

When Wednesday rolled around I got to keep busy because it is our long day at work. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong because I had the idea in my head that the results would only take a few business days. We were approaching a week since the procedure! My only tasks that night are to call the doctor and go to the gym. The call came first. After about 30 waiting on hold [Austin Regional Clinic has a call back service that works really well!] and several transfers I found a nurse. She was sympathetic and said she would call the imaging place to check. She wasn't affected by my tears of frustration when I explained the nurse on Tuesday promised the same thing but didn't respond.  

When I hung up I just lost it. I sobbed for about 15 minutes while I made dinner then called a friend who had some great suggestions on ways to take care of myself during the waiting; she calls it rigorous self care. Things like a lot sleep, extra rest, nutritious food, going easy on expectations on myself and reading about faith in some daily readers I have. I managed to calm down, eat my nutritious dinner and do some reading. Then I got a "suddenly" idea: call the imaging people myself! So I did. I reached a lovely person who totally understood. She reported no pathology results yet but told me it can take up to 3 week! No one had told me it could take that long! In fact, I realized that no one had told me a time frame at all and I hadn't thought to ask what was average. Immediately I felt better as the fear of something being wrong with my sample dissipated. 

About an hour later the ARC nurse called back to tell me that ARA had just received the pathology report and that the radiologist just had to read it, write a report and send it to the doctor.

Today, Thursday, I called when I got done with work stuff at 7:30 p.m., 11:30 a.m. in Austin. 

BENIGN. And I don't have to go back for a year, and then it is for a regular mammogram screening!!!

The doctor was right: now I know it's nothing. No more diagnostic mammograms every six month with the accompanying anxiety. And hopefully no more biopsies!