Word of the Day

Current mood: anxious
Category: Life

Currently on my IPOD: Symphony of a Thousand: Mahler

Good Morning Class,

I am just going to throw myself out in the open. I know that people get very personal on their blogs and today will be that day with me.

Today's word is: Spiculated (sp-ick-u-la-ted) Say it with me...Damn, can't put the little line over the top of the letters to show which ones are long vowels and which ones are short vowels.

Spiculated: ADJ. On a mammogram, dense regions with radiating lines that suggest breast masses or distortions. The term is used to describe highly suspicious masses that may indicate cancer.

Spiculated masses

* Soft tissue mass with spicules extending into surrounding tissue
* 95% of spiculated masses are due to invasive cancer

Everyone clear on this word? Now write a sentence using this word...This is your homework assignment.

Okay...

I thought my doctor had spelled "speculated" mass wrong. I thought that there was actually a doctor out there that didn't know how to spell. I was wrong. This was not found on a Mammogram. Rather the full body CT revealed a spiculated mass in the right breast, lying against the chest wall. WTF? Having said this.. I have had a breast reduction. I asked if this could be a result of the scarring. He said he doubted it. I hope he is wrong. I see a surgeon this week or next. Have to wait for the friggin referral to go through. Either way, it has to come out.

Then I thought, wait, this mass showed up on a previous CT. No one said anything. There's the good ole' military medicine for you. I take comfort in the fact that a 1.2 cm mass has not grown. So, what does the good nursey do? She googles: non-growing greater than 1 cm spiculated breast mass. I was brought to a site that quoted case after case of women who had, according to the radiologist, obvious benign masses due to no growth after a period of two or more years. Here's what brought me back down... They ended up biopsying the masses for one reason or another after two or more years and all but one came back as invasive cancer. Shit.

Fantastic.

Anywho...

Just can't win lately. Invited to send a piece into Thieves Jargon...Got turned down...Poor Steve Finbow, subjected to my writing two or three days in a row. I guess being accepted at Thieves is the least of my worries at the moment, although I am, on purpose, going to make it my biggest concern. Why the hell not?

I have to laugh. Right? Will you laugh at this with me? Hell, even laugh at me. Laugh at how ridiculous I look in my glasses. I might as well post a picture of my tits now that was have talked about them... Just kidding.

Don't get your hopes up.

I will keep my audience updated as I know things. I wish, at right about this moment, I wasn't a nurse and that spiculated wasn't a word, instead, speculated..

Yours in Breasts, Beasts, and Balancing Sanity,

Cicily