Don't tell me I'm too young for this

 My PET CT scan that revealed an area of concern, prompting the first of five different scans or tests (including a biopsy), took place on April 24, 2025. So for those who check every so often to hear the latest updates and musings from me (thank you), you now know why I've been so quiet on my blog. It's not to create a sense of drama that I have held off on sharing this part of the journey. It's that I do not see the point in telling however many of you there are I'm facing a possible additional diagnosis until I know enough to warrant the details being shared. 

(feel free to Google this and you'll likely find the one I really wanted to use. It had additional words.)

For those who have experienced an MRI guided breast biopsy, you know. For those who haven't, I hope you never, ever do. 

My best description doesn't include the word pain. But it is very overwhelming and emotionally intense.

(and pro tip: if they don't tell you - shower before you go in because you can't shower for 48 hours after and I'm - at best - annoyed by that).

One thing I've learned in the last month or so is this area of the body, as it relates to things not right, is not taken nearly as seriously as it should be - particularly the younger you are. 

Someone (or several someone's) is going to read this and wonder if I'm referring to them. Let that go and learn this lesson for the future: don't ever (or ever again) tell someone they are 'too young' to have breast cancer, be worried they have breast cancer, or pursuing tests that will concretely identify whether they do.

Ever.

I wish I could give this advice to physicians too, because I heard it (or some version of it) from no less than four adult people with medical degrees in the last month. I even like one of them very much.

I'm always curious about things I'm facing so I looked this up. The difference between someone in their 40's (that's me, I'm 44) and someone in their 50's getting breast cancer is 1 in 65 vs 1 in 42 according to the National Cancer Institute. That's not enough difference to warrant the comment (or the belief) that someone in their 40's is 'too young.' 

So for now and for the next several days, I wait.