I just wanted to practice with my tablet :) so here is my scribble of a mammo image. This looks a bit like mine, murky dense tissue that's difficult to see through. Let's call it a self portrait with calcifications (I don't really have those - currently anyway).
I had my mammogram recently and I got called back, actually more like I got called into the radiologist reading room since she was just a room away. There was an area of asymmetric density that looked actually pretty nasty on the 3D images - almost like an aquatic creature floating around in there, lost in the murky dense water of my boob... So I was a ZERO, which is the BIRADS score associated with an incomplete study. I needed to have more mammo images and maybe a targeted ultrasound to determine what was going on in there.
Guess what - I'm fine, no creature. We took more images with that lovely little paddle to compress some of my dense tissue apart and when you can see through it - it doesn't look so terrible.
Working in this world for a living so I know logically that these things can be positional and I have tissue that is difficult to look at. Scary family history aside it's never fun to have to come back for additional images - so believe me, I get that it sucks to come back - but it's worth finding out what's what.
Most instances of callback will end like mine - it compressed out, there is nothing to be worried about and all clear until next year. So please don't put off additional imaging, it doesn't need to be addressed today or tomorrow, but don't wait a month or more. Take care of you.
tell me what you think of my medical illustration (that makes it seem sexier than the aforementioned scribble).
be well!
sara
