No matter how hard I try, there is nothing wrong with me. But for a minute today, I was already down that road that you can travel in your mind at warp speed. The one where you lose all your hair to chemo and feel slight relief that at least now you don't have to decide if you are going to have another child because it's no longer an option and how at least they must have caught it early because your OB didn't feel a lump so your odds are really very good. No reason to be afraid. This as you lay on a table with one arm in an uncomfortable, overly-stiff white hospital gown, the other falling asleep perched over your head in a room with uncomfortable silence except for the drone of electronic machines and video screens.
It didn't start out like that, quite the opposite, as your mammogram technician started talking very quickly, too quickly, like she was trying to convince you that no, you don't hear any concern in her voice, just words coming out really fast. "We might have to take another picture, don't be surprised, sometimes the radiologist does that, it's nothing to be concerned about. I'm just going to do that left side one more time and make sure I've got your pec muscle in there". She's saying this as she turns the handle that cranks the panel flattening your breast faster and harder, until it reaches pancake-like levels you never even knew it was capable of. "Just sit tight, I'll be right back. Sometimes he asks for another picture. Maybe an ultrasound. If he does, it's completely normal." Something in her voice tells me not to believe her.
I've been to Vegas twice. Loved it both times. The first time was one of those what happens here stays here kind of visits, the second a fun work sponsored trip. I play my slots and even tried a little roulette but I am not a gambler, a risk taker, a free spirit. I think blot. I worry. I plot every probable outcome and in life, not all outcomes are good ones. I think and worry about that. A lot.
I've had something of a pain in my ass breast for quite sometime. They always hurt before and after my period but this felt different; settled in, dull, achy. Was I pregnant? Nope. Pulled a muscle? No. The left started to look bigger than the right. I thought my glands were swollen. I got in to see my OB. She didn't feel anything. Still I worried. It didn't feel right. "I'll send you for a diagnostic mammogram" she said, familiar with my hypochondriac tendencies, "that way the radiologist will be right there, but I'm not concerned." She didn't need to be. It wasn't her sore boob. It wasn't her thinking of the friends she knew in their thirties who had already battled breast and ovarian cancer. I wanted a mammogram last time I saw her but since I'd already had a baseline 5 years ago she thought I could wait until I was forty. As in four years from now. A lot can happen in four years. I can think of a lot of things in four years time. I didn't want to take chances. I wanted a mammogram. I wasn't in overwhelming alarming pain, but what if I did nothing and there was something. How could I live with that? I made the appointment.
The fast talking tech reappeared. "The radiologist would like a couple more pictures and after that we are going to do an ultrasound on the left side. Nothing to be concerned about, he just wants to get a good read". An ultrasound? I thought to myself, my blood pressure rising just a little. Block it out. You are thirty six. You exercise. You do self exams. This is just preventative. She walks me down the hall to another waiting area. Two gossip magazines later another tech takes me into a room. This time I'm lying down and there is goo.
She is moving the wand over me slowly, slowly, I can't take my eyes off the screen. It's strangely serene. The image of me underneath me looks like waves underwater. Layers of black and white very fluid, waves and curves and swells. This is taking too long, I think, still completely mesmerized. She stops the motion and takes some pictures. My eye races across the screen trying to zoom in on what it is she might be seeing. I just see gray. "I'm going to talk with the radiologist. He might come in and do some hands on screening. Sometimes they do that. Don't be alarmed." I'm thinking of the last time I had an ultrasound, as big as a cow, about to go into labor, doing a last check to make sure the head was down. Will I never do that again? Is that part of my life over even though I haven't even processed it all yet? I am alarmed. On many levels.
The clock is ticking and Ive been bringing it up regularly. I am on the fence and he is on the fence but I feel I'm starting to sway. Pregnant women are starting to fascinate me. The touch of my sons bare toes perched against my leg as we read books brought back with startling clarity that feeling of butterflies I used to have in my belly. I passed through the hospital corridors where he was born remembering going home as a family. He was wearing a blue onsie, size 0-3 months, it was enormous. I had packed badly. I had forgotten about that.
Knock knock. It's the radiologist. I'm done for, I think, as he repositions me and starts to palpitate. "Does this hurt? No. This? No. The tech here would like me to take a look at something. This should only take a minute." Again the screen comes alive with movement. Without my telling him he is zeroing in on the place I identified as bothersome. I'm staring at the screen. He asks for color; blue specks dance on the monitor, then red. They enlarge some areas, pause. The last time I saw color on an ultrasound was my first pregnancy. They were looking for a heartbeat. It wasn't there. Now my heart is pounding as I imagine what he might have to tell me. I could live without that breast. I would have reconstruction, take it all. I was just admiring those little pixie cuts the celebrities are getting. It would make my life easier. My life. If I got to keep it.
"I think everything looks fine", the radiologist says, turning off the machine. "You are free of any masses and I can't find a reason for the pain, but should it change or become more troublesome", blah blah blah.. I tune him out. He's a nice man. "See you when you are forty" he says, making his exit.
Maybe I'll be back to that hospital sooner. A lot can change in four years.
