Yes? No? I want to know.

Last week I went to the gynecologist to get my annual papsmear and physical exam. I also wanted her to do some blood work because of my hormonal acne and extra body hair growth. My doctor said that she felt an usual lump on my left breast and ordered a mammogram and ultrasound for me. I didn’t think much of it because I know that it’s normal for women around my age to have non cancerous benign cysts or fibroids in their breasts.  I left feeling absolutely positive that I was just fine. I have no pain and felt great! Plus I am way too young to be having breast cancer. It’s very rare for someone my age. Still,  waiting a week to get the ultrasound and mammogram made me feel just a little bit uneasy. There was that voice in the back of my head reminding me that I wont know for sure until I get the results.

  today I went in for the mammogram and the ultrasound and was really happy that the results came back negative. They didn’t find anything! I was super relieved! Even experiences like that make you so grateful to be alive. However, 20 minutes later I received a phone call from my gynecologist’s office saying that even though the images came back showing nothing she still felt that my physical exam was unusually abnormal and wanted to do another physical exam and possibly refer me to another doctor for another mammogram. I feel like the images wouldn’t lie, but it’s better to be safer than sorry. The next news I received from the nurse was that my labs came back and everything was normal except for my prolactin levels. I didn’t  even know what prolactin was! Anyway she says that because the prolactin is high the doctor went ahead and ordered me an MRI. That freaked me out a little bit. “Why do I need an MRI? What exactly is prolactin?” The nurse replied “Prolactin is a hormone that usually in the body when someone is pregnant or lactating, or menopausal. The other causes are the thyroid but your thyroid seems normal so she just wants to check your pituitary gland just to make sure.” “To make sure of what?” She said “The doctor will explain all of this to you when she sees you. She didn’t really write down much else or give me her reasoning.”

I was kind of miffed about the phone call and that the doctor wouldn’t give me specificitys, so I decided to Google about it. It looks like other than being pregnant ( which I’m not ) or having thyroid issues ( which I’m not ) The only other thing that could be causing hire prolactin is a benign tumor on the pituitary gland which is why she would want me to have an MRI. Also, high prolactin Levels do cause acne and abnormal body hair growth which would explain why that was happening to me. At least if I do have a tumor it would be non-cancerous and could be treated with medicine. 

So yeah, I went from feeling very relieved after the mammogram results to now feeling unsure again about the breast cancer, and also feeling a little unnerved that I may have a benign tumor in my brain. LOL! Kind of a crazy day.