Needle in a Haystack

I’m. Just. Fine.

That’s important to start with: I’m just fine.

It’s a very common thing (more common than I knew) to get a call-back notice on your mammogram.

I knew when I received the phone call- at work- from the ‘breast imaging center’ that it shouldn’t have happened.

They tell you, when you report for the exam, that what you SHOULD get is the envelope, filled out by you, with the results.

What you MIGHT get is a call to return.

You don’t want to get the call.

Then you get the call.

No, the caller can’t tell you why you need to come back.

Yes, you do need to make the appointment right now.

Sure, you can contact your doctor for the reason.

Where do you need to go for the new images?

Oh yes, to the hospital.

To the Cancer Center.

(I told the caller that they really needed to rebrand that bit of news.

Maybe say it’s adjacent to pediatrics?

Maybe it’s on the ground floor?

Maybe not say ‘Cancer’ like that?

Just a thought.

She wasn’t engaged with the feedback.)

My doctor explained there was a shadow.

In my breast.

A week and a half of fitful sleeping and I go in for the new mammogram.

After the x-rays are done, I expect to get dressed, but no- I sit and wait.

Then am ushered into an ultrasound room.

There is a need for new-better-sharper-images of the shadow.

I asked to see the x-rays while I waited.

Even I could see the shadow.

In my breast.

I asked to see the x-rays from a year and a half earlier.

No shadow.

The ultrasound was performed.

Cold gel and firm pressure.

Propped on my side.

Then flat with arm over my head.

Room is dimmed.

Click. Click. Click.

No one talks.

(See. That’s a problem. I like talking. Makes me feel better. But I don’t talk either.)

The news is this: they are about 80% certain that this is a benign cyst.

But they don’t know.

They’d like to say it’s OK, but….

They won’t.

I can’t make them.

I have a choice.

Go home and wait six months then come back and see if it’s bigger

(Or gone. Evidently sometimes they disappear.)

Or take it out now, maybe a ‘fine-needle aspiration’.

In my breast.

If they aspirate it-

(Or if they can’t aspirate it. AKA ‘that wouldn’t be a good outcome’)

well, then they ~and I ~ will know what’s happening.

If I wait six months and it’s still there we’ll have the same decision to make.

I’d like to sleep again someday, though.

So, I made the appointment and today I went to the CANCER CENTER

(so far, no one has acted on my helpful suggestion re: rebranding)

and had the ~thankfully~ found to be a cyst aspirated.

With a fine-needle.

In my breast.

It took 7 people in the room;

2 of them were observing,

one person was in charge of the requested classic rock and to chatter with me.

(Dear Lord- that you for CCR and Aerosmith… and Holly the assigned chatterer. Amen.)

The needle penetrated and sucked out clear fluid,

and the cyst emptied like a malevolent balloon on the screen

and collapsed into itself, and hallelujah it isn’t cancer.

In my breast.

Then they inserted a teeny tiny filament marker-like thing

into the space where that balloon was.

So in the future they can see where that shadow used to be.

Because sometimes they come back.

So I have a thread in my breast that I can’t feel.

And I’m not supposed to life anything heavy for 2 days.

no spas or swimming for 10 days.

Don’t take fish oil or Omega 3 for another 3 days.

So many numbers.

And there’s a titanium thread.

In my breast.

And it’s frightening and somehow quiet and hushed.

To think that there may be cancer in you.

If I had a cyst on my finger or toe I wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell someone.

So why was this different?

Why was I afraid to share this routine call-back?

Why did I anxiously feel myself up in secret like a liquored-up prom date?

(Disclaimer-

Lee and I didn’t drink and

{regardless of what we/he/I wanted or said}

no feeling-up happened.

Which may have been a bad decision on my part.

Who knows what would have happened?

But, you can’t go back.

I used the liquored-up prom date phrase rather loosely, and with this apology to Lee.)

My body and I are dancing this tentative dance together these days.

I make the overture of reconciliation.

Behaviors to restore fitness and health.

Food as fuel and not indulging escapism.

It responds with more energy and a nasty head cold.

I’m walking more and more and feel my muscles respond and ease.

Get new glasses and find I have baby cataracts forming.

Do good routine doctoring and find a cyst.

In my breast.

I need to have confidence that all is as it should be.

That even if the news hadn’t been fine, I would still be fine.

Control what little I can, influence the rest the best I can, and trust that what I can’t change is in the hands of Love far more capable and enduring than I could ever show myself.

So I share this.

I’m not going to be embarrassed I have breasts.

See me and -pow- there they are.

Mammograms happen.

Shadows can be found.

I took part in two extra x-rays this morning before the biopsy.

They were part of a new topographical technique research study for diagnosing problems earlier.

So maybe I can help other women find real issues faster.

And they can get help sooner.

And live longer.

And now I carry around I have a titanium needle in a haystack for future techs to find.

In my breast.

February is National Cancer Awareness month. If you have put off scheduling your mammogram now is a great time to make that call or send that email. Take care of yourself the same way you would take care of others. You are worth the self-care.