The Biopsy Blues. And Blacks. And Purples...

November 13th, 2013

I'm lying on a medical trolley, trying to breathe as a long needle delivers local anaesthetic deep into my breast. I only discovered that I have cancer about an hour ago, and everything just seems unreal – far away and disconnected. The pain brings me back to my situation, before my brain insists on closing everything down again, leaving me feeling as numb emotionally as the drugs make me physically.

Even in the midst of this, I find myself trying to lighten the situation. I tell the nurses that if they don't save my life I'll haunt them, loudly and repeatedly. They're very kind about my clumsy and inappropriate attempts at humour: I can only presume they've grown used it over many years of performing the procedure on shocked patients.

Once my breast is numb, feeling like a giant marshmallow randomly stuck to my chest, the biopsy begins. Biospies, really: plural. I have ten tiny pieces of flesh taken from inside my breast, using a contraption that makes a noise exactly like a staple gun. I feel the sudden pressure each time they extract a sample, but it doesn't really hurt. After they've finished the biopsies, they use a different type of needle to insert a few tiny titanium clips into the flesh around the tumours, to aid with identifying them in future. I want to scream that I don't want the cancer flagged. I want it out of me.

Halfway through the session, Matt arrives. He looks pale and shaky, and I comment that perhaps he should be the one lying on the trolley. One of the nurses brings him a chair, but points out that I'm the patient, so if he faints, they'll just leave him there and step over him.

I think he thinks they're serious. Perhaps they are.

Matt holds my hand, determinedly looking at my face rather than the breast being punctured, bruised and battered. I try to cry, feeling it's somehow the appropriate reaction, but the tears won't come.

Back at home, once the anaesthetic wears off, I'm pretty sore.  My little boy wants to snuggle up to me, and I have to restrict him to one side of my body because the other hurts too much.  Even weeks later, I'm black, blue, yellow and green, bruised into a mosaic of dreary colours by the biopsy damage.