Day 1: Saturday evening. I am in the shower, about to go out with a friend. As I am putting on my body lotion, I find a small lump in my right breast, about the size of a baked bean, hard and distinct. I've had lumpy breasts before and my GP told me that everyone has lumpy breasts. It's change that I should watch out for, he said. Things have changed. This lump is different. I go out, and by the time I get home I can feel pain in my right breast. I try to remember if I could feel any pain before I discovered The Lump. I don't think so.
Day 2: I wake at 4am with a dry mouth, soaked in sweat. A friend tells me to "get it seen immediately" but I am reluctant to clog up casualty for hours just to annoy a tired junior doctor. I call another friend and she tells me to see my GP tomorrow.
Day 3: After an hour-and-a-half wait I get to see a GP, though not mine. I show him where The Lump is; he feels around, finds it and refers me to the breast clinic at Guy's hospital. The moment I have dreaded for years has arrived. I walk out of the surgery, stopping off at the toilets to be sick. The 15-minute walk home takes me an hour. Halfway there, I sit on a bench and cry.
By the time I get home, I am in a blind panic. I call another friend to tell her, but cannot be understood as I heave for air between sobs. She tells me to get back to my GP, find out how long the waiting time is for Guy's, get a copy of the referral letter and take it to Guy's myself.
New government guidelines say women over 30 with a discrete lump should be seen within 14 days, she says. I tell her I have pain in my back. Ask about that too, she says. I call the GP and he tells me through gritted teeth that I am not urgent and therefore do not come within the guidelines. It could be four to six weeks. I call the unit at Guy's and speak to a sympathetic nurse. She listens and tells me how many cases come through the unit, and that the back pain is irrelevant. She will do what she can to get me an early appointment but I am not urgent and therefore...
Day 4: I am sleep deprived. I feel dominated by The Lump. I call the nurse at Guy's to ask if stress can bring on breast cancer. "It's an interesting question," she says, "the jury's out."
Day 5: Scores of friends have cropped up telling me about their lumps - fibroadenomas which were harmless and could be removed or not, cysts which can be aspirated with a needle. Harmless too.
I read that 90% of women have benign breast disease. The fact that my lump is mobile is good. Pain is not an indication of cancer. I go back to those guidelines, and call the GP. "That is for suspected cancer," he says. "I have assessed you as probably benign." Probably. "The thing is," says my friend, "technically, you are suspected cancer, otherwise he wouldn't be referring you to hospital, would he?" I call the nurse at Guy's, whose sympathy is waning. I tell her about the guidelines again. "I'll see what I can do," she says.
Day 6: I get a call from the nurse as I arrive at work. I have an appointment in 10 days' time, just within the 14-day guidelines. I put the phone down, go the toilets and cry. It would have been my mother's 70th birthday today. She died 10 years ago. By the time she died, the cancer, which started in her stomach, had spread to her liver and lungs. She had two turns under the surgeon's knife: the first removed part of her stomach; the second revealed that the cancer was inoperable. But no breast cancer. I consult a GP friend by email. "Family history irrelevant," he writes back.
Day 7: It's breast cancer awareness month and the woman opposite me on the train is wearing one of those pink ribbons. I wonder whether it would be tempting fate to get one. But by now I have told a few people at work about The Lump and it might look like attention-seeking to come decked out in ribbons.
Day 11: I have started the old childish practice of doing a deal with God. If this is all OK, I will never worry again about work or relationships. I will be so grateful for my health that I will not let anything else capture my attention. I really mean it.
Day 12: I am beginning to notice that my fuse is getting shorter and shorter. I can only just bear to sit still at the table at a work dinner, and have to keep going for walks just to ease the tension. I feel furious and desperate. I wonder if I am getting overtired.
Day 17: Today's The Day. I am due at Guy's hospital at noon. I actually sleep pretty well, which surprises me. I haven't checked The Lump for days. I think I am all panicked out.
At the hospital, I burst into tears as soon as I see the oncology sign, but after that I am overcome with calm. As I was warned, there are people around, also waiting, who do not look well. A gaunt women can hardly stand and her husband talks to the woman behind the desk on her behalf.
The consultant, a surgeon, is business-like. He asks about my general health, examines me (which hurts) and says he thinks there is nothing to worry about. He finds a second lump in the other breast and excitedly calls the junior doctor to have a go too.
He tells me he is almost sure they are fibroadenomas, usually found in younger women and perfectly harmless. But he wants to be sure. This means a mammogram, a scan and a biopsy, and then he would probably want to whip the lumps out anyway, which would be done under local anaesthetic and leave only a tiny scar.
My friend and I are sent down the corridor with a form to the mammogram section.
The mammogram hurts. I am told that this is because my breasts are still firm - if they were all saggy it would hurt less. The nurse has to squidge each breast onto a plate and then press another plate on the other side of it to flatten it as much as possible. The flatter the breast, the better the pictures, she tells me.
When we return to the consultant, it's too late for a scan. I will have to come back in two weeks. Pushing this time won't make a difference, I can see that. So I take the other option. I decide to pay.
Day 18: My dear friend has spent the morning on the phone to the consultant's private clinic and arranged a scan and a biopsy for Thursday evening. The consultant radiologist, a woman, is going to come over from Guy's specially for my appointment. She's a good one, too, we are assured.
Day 20: The Day comes once again. The scan is not what I had expected. I had imagined a kind of x-ray or being put in a cabinet with rays of light flashing around me. In fact it means lying on the bed while the radiologist runs a hand-held implement, like a roller, over the entire area of both breasts. As she does it, the image is visible on a screen at her side. My friend studies it closely too.
This isn't painful or even unpleasant - I just hate the fact of it. The radiologist finds both lumps easily but cannot tell immediately what they are. She decides to check whether one is a cyst by piercing it with a needle to see if it will drain. If so, it's great. They will disappear and it will all be over and I can go home. It doesn't.
The next step is a core biopsy. This involves removing a tiny piece of tissue from the core of the lump, which is then tested for cancerous cells. It has to be certain that the tissue has come from the lump, preferably its centre, and not the surrounding breast tissue. Otherwise you could get a false clear result. I will need a local anaesthetic, the radiologist tells me, and I begin to realise that this might not be the simple pinprick, in-and-out experience I had thought it would be.
I look over at my friend in the chair. She is ashen-faced. Then I see the needle and close my eyes. I try not to think about what is happening but can sense something moving around inside me. I know the radiologist is working the needle in to get the point on to the lumps, which she says are tiny.
Eventually, it's over. I am bandaged, dressed, shaken and relieved to get out. The radiologist is surprised that we are going home by public transport. She suggests that I have some sweet tea first.
Day 21: I go to work, bandaged and bruised, and immediately regret it. I feel too shaken, tired and vulnerable, and in too much pain, to be at work.
Day 25: Back at work, rather pointlessly as I can hardly sit still. Later I wait at London Bridge station for two friends to turn up. I arranged back-up this time in case one faints.
The three of us file into the consulting room at Guy's after the surgeon. He smiles and begins by asking me about the biopsy, expressing sympathy for the bruising and general unpleasantness of it all. Then he casually mentions that the lumps were fibroadenomas, as he thought, and harmless. "There were no cancerous cells?" I ask. "No. None. We don't need to take them out. We are sure."
Later on I write a text message on my mobile - "All clear" - and send it to everyone I can think of.
