On Tuesday 6th February 2018 I was sat on my sofa in my pyjamas with no bra, my most favourite thing to do in the evening after cooking, eating and clearing up after dinner was to whip off my bra, especially being 17 weeks pregnant with ever growing boobs. I’ve never been one to check my breasts regularly, but I would check them occasionally. I had been checking them on a more regular basis the last few months what with being pregnant as they had grown and become more sensitive during my pregnancy. This is my second pregnancy and I can’t remember them being like this first time round when I was pregnant with my daughter, now 2 years old.

As I was touching my left breast I felt a hard lump at the top. I have never felt anything like it before and I mentioned it to my husband who was sat next to me. We both didn’t really think anything of it and put it down to my boobs changing due to being pregnant. We both said I should make a doctors appointment to get it checked to be on the safe side.

A few days had passed and with everyday life getting in the way ringing the doctors during the day kept slipping my mind until I remembered again in the evening. I had also mentioned it to my mum and sister. Again, my mum thought the same as my husband and I. Friday came and my sister was at my house and while getting our daughters lunch ready she asked if I had booked an appointment at the doctors. My response was no, she told me to ring there and then.

I phoned my GP to try and get an appointment that day, but they were fully booked. The receptionist asked what the problem was, which I explained, she said she could only offer me an appointment at the local health centre at 7.20pm that evening. I took the appointment as my husband also had an appointment there at 7pm.

As that time was our daughters bed time my mum came to babysit while we both went down to the health centre. We joked about it being a ‘date night’. After waiting 10 minutes my husband got called in by the doctor. When I see it was a male doctor I started to panic that he was probably the doctor I was going to see also. Sure enough it was, I just felt quite self-conscious and would have preferred a lady doctor. I even contemplated not telling him about the lump I had found and just go with the fact I had been suffering with acid reflux and needing a prescription for Gaviscon.

To make me feel even worse, I had asked my husband to come in with me, but he said you’ll be fine just go. I went into the room and I explained what I was there for, sticking with the original problem, a lump in my left breast. He asked me a few questions and then said he would need to examine me. He called in a female colleague to sit in while he did the examination which put my mind at ease slightly. He carried out a thorough examination and suggested I needed to be referred for an urgent scan. I didn’t expect to hear that, after googling a lump in the breast during pregnancy I kept seeing the same thing, a possible blocked milk duct or a cyst. I was told I needed to see my own GP for them to do the referral as I wasn’t a patient at the health centre. When I went back out to my husband and told him I needed to be referred for a scan he was just as shocked as I was.

We spoke in the car on the way home and mentioned the dreaded ‘C’ word but shrugged it off and both thought it can’t be. It was most probably down to being pregnant. We arrived back home and told my mum what the doctor had said, we all spoke a bit like we had in the car on the way back. Surly it cant be anything serious.

This was the start of a long 4 weeks waiting to find out what the ‘lump’ actually was.

Danielle x