Coping with the anxiety
It's just another cyst, Michele Topor thought. There's no point in panicking. She had been through it before. Over the years, Topor had had a series of abnormal mammograms. Yet followup procedures always proved that what doctors saw on the film was a harmless cyst, not a cancerous tumor.
But last year, when a routine mammogram at Massachusetts General Hospital showed something unusual, the followup tests did not yield the reassuring results she had come to expect. More mammograms followed, and an ultrasound. For two months, Topor worried that she had breast cancer, while holding out hope that it was a false alarm. Ultimately, doctors performed a biopsy that left a 2-inch scar, so they could test the tissue for cancer.
"I could remember being completely off the wall," said Topor, who is 58. "I had one hell of a month last December."
Topor, who lives in the North End and leads culinary tours of North End markets and parts of Italy, was a kidney transplantation nurse for 30 years. Her background led her to start getting mammograms in her 30s -- years before they're typically recommended -- even though she didn't have any of the risk factors for breast cancer.
"In my past," she said, "I'd seen so much crisis-oriented medicine" directed at people with very advanced illness. "I think we all have to be preventative."
Early on, Topor was diagnosed with fibrocystic breast disease, a common condition in which breast tissue undergoes benign changes that can make the breasts feel bumpy and tender.
So, when her annual mammogram last fall revealed something suspicious, Topor wasn't worried at first.
"I'm always saying, `It's another cyst, it's another cyst,' " she said. She underwent a test at Massachusetts General Hospital in which doctors inserted a needle into the mass to draw fluid or tissue. But those results -- along with more mammograms -- were questionable. Her doctor's office called with what she viewed as ominous news: She should see a surgeon. "I certainly thought cancer," she said.
Topor, who is single and has no children, relied heavily on the comfort of a friend who had had a similar experience a few months earlier. She also found solace in her work. Despite not knowing what her fate held, she opted to lead an already-scheduled culinary tour of Italy, because her surgeon said the biopsy could wait.
"I just kept saying, `It's going to be OK,' " she recalled. "It's always in the back of your mind. Thank God I was busy with the group in Italy."
When she returned, she underwent surgery in December. After an agonizing weekend of waiting, Topor got the final result: It wasn't cancer. She had a fibroadenoma, a benign lump that was different than the cysts she had had in the past.
"I cried," she said. "The relief is amazing."
Several months after her ordeal, Topor said it was worth enduring weeks of anxiety to learn in the end that she was healthy. The scar will continue to fade. Her best advice to other women, she said, is to get a mammogram.
"What I've learned from the experience is it's not always a terrible outcome. And I think you have to keep that in mind. I think also for peace of mind, go with the flow. Just do it."
