Field Trip 1 - The biopsy

It wasn’t your everyday exam table: Near the south end, a part of the table was cut away to form a gaping oval.

“Just lie on your stomach and position your breasts over the hole,” instructs the male nurse.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been through this before”. Me, with my body weight pressing down against the table while “The Girls” go dangling through the hole.

“Weeeee!” they seemed to be saying, delightfully waving in the breeze, enjoying their new found freedom.

Dr. Whozit enters the room and explains the procedure: Left Girl will be clamped securely in a vice, then a hollow core needle we be inserted into the breast site to remove some of the tissue where the mammogram had shown unusual calcification. I will hear a loud machine - It’s a vacuum sucking tissue from the site. (Huh? Vacuum?)

She assured me she would numb the area with a couple shots of lidocaine. I should expect to feel a little sting.

A little sting is when you anger a bee. A needle invading 3-4 inches into one of your Girls has a rather “peel me off the ceiling” sensation. I guess she was just trying to be nice.

Five “stings” later she inserts the hollow core needle. Yep, I’m numb.

“Oh, oh,” she says.

“Hmmmmm,” says the nurse.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” I ask.

Silence.

My dentist, my hair stylist, and now a third person to add to the list of people not to piss off: the doc who has one of my Girls in a clamp, an array of sharp needles, and a Turbo Dyson near by.

Finally she speaks. “It seems I can’t reach the site from this angle. We’ll have to go in from another angle. I’m glad I brought more lidocaine. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” Becky the wimp replies.

Five more excruciating “little stings”, the hollow core needle, and the Hoover from Hell; finally it’s over.

“Don’t get dressed yet,” instructs the nurse. We still have to mammogram that breast.

Say what????