Enbrel, My Breast Lump and My Daughter’s Rib

What I’ve read is true. Two days or so before your next injection, it wears off and you feel all the pain. I don’t even know when my next injection will be! It was meant to be today, and I was reminded of this sad fact by the deep ache I’ve woken up with.

So, I need to get better. And I also need to prove that I don’t have cancer as cancer patients aren’t allowed to be on biologics. Oh, I didn’t mention anything about cancer?

I’m one of those “Check your breasts!” fanatics. It saves lives. Early detection really is the best when possible. Even check just your skin for dimpling or ‘wrinkling’ or something different, even if inside you feel no change. That’s been my mantra for years and those who know me know that.

So, I was lying on my bed on Wednesday night and I decided to conduct a breast check. Went round my left breast first, all the way to armpit, and all felt normal. Went round to my right side and …”Hmm, what’s this?” It is very close to my breast bone (I know that’s not good) and it’s larger than two centimeters across. In a state of panicked, “I really hope I’m wrong, I really hope I’m not feeling something that’s not there,” I went out and asked my teenager, Eliora, if she could feel it. I did the same. Told her to start with the left and then the right. “Nooo!!! It’s not normal! I can feel something here!” I had a mammogram last year January and there were density changes and changes the radiographer thought and good were due to surgery but suggested I go back this year. Now, I’m not so sure they were purely from surgery but at the same time, I hope they were.

Husband arrived from business in Botswana that evening. I lay down, pressed each breast flat, and he couldn’t miss it. You can see ‘something’ raised on the lower side towards the bottom middle bottom of my breast.

I sent photos to my friend and she immediately saw the difference too. And we all know how notoriously bad photos are.

I have no clue what it is. Is it some weird muscle thing? Is it a cyst? Is it scar tissue from the two breast reductions I’ve had in my life? Is it a weird bony growth caused by AS? 🫣Is it a tumour? Is it necessarily malignant if it’s a tumour? Or will I escape for the fourth time with a growth that needs testing but will NOT be a malignant mass?

I do know how stressed a young girl was in university when she found a lump. Her boyfriend and I were visiting her room in res and she was frantic with worry. Hers was in the breast itself, she asked me to feel it and yep, it was there. She went to the varsity clinic and they told her to return two weeks later for a biopsy.

For two weeks I stressed and her boyfriend stressed and she stressed. It was horrible. I didn’t want her to suffer! And her boyfriend was shattered with worry while we waited. Thank God for her, it turned out to not be a malignant tumour. I think it was a cyst of some kind. The relief was beyond explanation. I felt like I could breathe properly again.

I will feel like that after my next mammogram and ultrasound. Maybe after biopsy if they deem it necessary. I did do an online booking at the hospital I did my last one at but they keep the “we will call you back with a date” thing as promised, so I will call. Or maybe I’ll see my gynae and do a full check THEN go? Or I’ll book the mammogram AND book my gynae and see which is available first. I think she’d wanted me to do mammogram every two years and pap every year. I’ll do both. But first, this bronchitis needs to be better so I don’t cough when they’re busy checking me.

Speaking of bronchitis. Someone not yet on oxygen in our ILD group got bronchitis which then turned to pneumonia and ended up in hospital on a ventilator and died scared me! I need to get better fully. And I need to be able to be still for the mammogram. So, here’s to speedy healing and to being able to breathe a sigh of relief. 🙏🏾

I won’t talk about the irony of how when we were choosing which of the two ‘most expensive biologic paying’ medical aid plans, I kept telling my husband that the most expensive one of the two had higher cancer coverage and allowed for treatment overseas so we should take it. After all, Ankylosing spondylitis patients have a higher cancer risk. So…Yes, I believe in natural as being best. But I will use it in conjunction with surgery. And once I know what kind of breast cancer it is, I WILL look for remedies from those who have used natural remedies who will have been at the stage I’ll be found to be at and we’re healed . If it’s cancer, I will remove the enemy lump. If necessary, I will remove the breast too and so reconstruction – as horrible as that itself is. And I think I’d need an implant (as safe as possible) as they can’t take a stomach muscle as mine are behind mesh. I know I can’t do all the natural remedies my slow leukemia friend is on. Broccoli etc that she uses for juicing are bad triggers for my IBS. So that’s the other thing. I can’t use things that will make me sick in this way. I do not need a bowel impaction- those are also dangerous.

But let’s not go there.

We will go for a mammogram and ultrasound and both will tell me that it’s so obviously a cyst or something that I won’t even need a biopsy. I don’t know how long off Enbrel I would need to be for biopsy. If urethral surgery was four weeks surely a biopsy will be some time too, if not as long. After all, there’s still risk of infection… Will find out when I know that I need it.

And I won’t! Right?💪🏾

Oh, and my daughter’s floating rib is still causing significant suffering. My husband has 75% off flight tickets and has been to parts of America for work maybe every years since 2013, so he is au fait with getting about. And doesn’t have AS pain to contend with with regards to flying. And he won’t need to wear a mask so he doesn’t catch sickness. He will take her to America if I can’t find a surgeon here who knows about floating rib syndrome.