Doctor's appointments

I spent the last two days driving to and from doctor's appointments. Ian finally convinced me to see our family doctor about the changes in the one breast. There's a ring of red, raised skin just outside the aerola which makes my breast look like a big bullseye. Above that ring there's a recessed red area with white spots in it. I'm fairly certain that both areas are sarcoidosis.

I saw my family doctor yesterday. He took a look at the breast and immediately said that while it doesn't look like cancer, he doesn't know what it is so he wants a biopsy (which I also wanted). He got me an appointment with my surgeon this morning: he looked at it and will biopsy it next Thursday at the hospital. I guess the plan is to freeze it, take a sample, and put a stitch in it so it shouldn't be too traumatic.

The reason Ian convinced me to see our family doctor was that I've started feeling pain in the affected breast. It almost feels like whatever is going on in the skin is spreading inward, if that makes sense. If the thickening and redness is sarcoidosis then it's possible that the sarcoidosis is starting to affect the scar tissue inside the breast. We're not going to do a mammogram to see what's going on in there because we can see and feel that the breast skin is affected.

As I say, I expect that the problem is sarcoidosis and if we confirm that, I hope that we can treat it somehow. The usual treatment is steroids and of course they're not good for the body. At this point I'd rather not leave it alone because it's so ugly and it's becoming painful. Besides, if we don't treat it, it could show up on my next mammogram - and if it does, I can imagine we'd have to do a more involved biopsy. I don't want to have to go through that, you know?

I found driving back and forth each day to be very tiring. I didn't sleep well the night before last or yesterday afternoon but last night and this afternoon I slept like a baby who sleeps through the night. I'd hoped to do some dishes and get my sample apron done (I was able to work out a way to make the apron the way I wanted) but both will have to wait for tomorrow.