Annual Anxiety

Lately I have been getting up in the middle of the night. Nothing is really on my mind- nothing that I wake up thinking about. I am just up. Anywhere between 3- 5 AM. Unusual for me. I am a sleeper and, though I do not go to bed early, I like to sleep late. Finally this week, I realized that my anxiety (which is what wakes me up between 3- 5 AM) is about the annual mammogram I have scheduled for May 6.

Mammograms are always a scary thing. If one in 7 women gets breast cancer, you look around the waiting room and count out. Well, in 2012 I was the one in seven. On May 25, 2012 in a routine annual mammogram, I was told to get a biopsy to check a shadow that was not there the year before. On May 30 I had a biopsy and on June 4, I was told she had invasive lobular carcinoma. I got two opinions and July 11 had surgery with Dr Dahlia Sataloff at Pennsylvania Hospital.

This is the fourth year since my diagnosis and treatment for lobular cancer in my right breast. I had radiation for 8 weeks at Lankenau Hospital with Dr Marisa Weiss after surgery. My oncologist is Dr David Mintzer at Pennsylvania Hospital. I am on Tamoxifen.

May is my check up month and I have appointments later in the month with Drs Sataloff and Mintzer. Last year was smooth sailing- No extra pictures, no sonogram, no changes!!

No doubt that I am nervous about the test. My body tells me so by waking me up. But mammograms save lives, find cancer early and are necessary for good health. I just hope all is well and they find nothing. Then I can sleep through the night for another year!