We had a fabulous week in Cyprus and returned with about 10 days of the school holidays left. During that time Dave and I had a weekend away in Marlow visiting the Hand and Flowers Pub (his 50^th birthday present from me) and then we took off to Wales with the kids. My youngest Joe has always wanted to do ‘Velocity’ the fastest zip wire in the world, but you must be aged 10 to do it so we bought it for him as a 10^th birthday present. I have always wanted to climb Snowdon so it made sense to do both at the same time.

Funnily enough I booked the trip to Wales whilst in Cornwall and after I’d found the lump. Whilst I didn’t know at that time how things would turn out I think it just made me more determined than normal to ‘live life to the full’.

Snowdon and Velocity were amazing and we had 2 wonderful days in Wales before the kids went back to school. On the day they went back I had my biopsy at Coventry University Hospital.

I had to be there for 8.30 and was seen promptly. I could go into detail about what they had to do, but I won’t, I don’t think you need to hear it. I was there for them to find out what the shadow was on my left breast and hoping to eliminate cancer. The doctor looked at my right one for comparison but whilst doing so saw something she wasn’t happy about. I asked her whether I needed to prepare myself for what she’d seen but she understandably didn’t commit to anything she simply said ‘I don’t know because I don’t know what your norm is’.

They spent two hours taking images and samples from both my breasts via ultrasound and via mammogram. It didn’t really hurt, but it was uncomfortable, highly invasive and undignified, oh and the noise of the biopsy instrument sounded like a stapler! Having said all of that, the three ladies that did the procedure were amazing. One held my hand all the way through the ultrasound, a simple thing that meant so much. For someone who is a bit of a wimp like me, I did pretty well. I stayed still and quiet so they could do their job but when it was all over and I opened my eyes I burst into tears. I think it was a combination of relief, fear and being overwhelmed.

They took me to a private room and brought us tea and biscuits whilst I gathered myself and told Dave all that had gone on (he’d been sat in the waiting room for the full two hours). Once again it reminded me that we are so lucky to have such a fantastic health service and also how grateful we need to be for everyone who works within it.

They told us the results would be available in about 2 weeks.

The waiting game continued……