Whew! Glad that’s over.

We’ve all done the routine tests and got the letter that says
“everything’s fine, please pay your bill”.

But then, this time, you get that letter, or a phone call, that says,
‘We’d like to do that test again.’

OK. Makes me a little nervous, but oh well.

So we do it over and then they say,
‘The radiologist would like to go over the films with you.’

Hmmm. Never done that before.

I don’t think it was because he wanted to meet the owner of that lovely mammogram.

He used the word, biopsy.

Really?

I really wasn’t expecting that.

Just thought it was my camera shy breasts taking bad pictures.

‘Most’ of these type are benign he said.

How much is ‘most’ I wondered.

So on to WebMD to look for information.

WebMD says ‘most’, in this case, equals 80%. That’s pretty good odds if you’re playing poker.

Just a short 9 days to traverse through until biopsy day, which happened to fall on my husband’s birthday. Happy birthday to you, something new for you to worry about. He loves to worry so he should be ecstatic about my present.

It only takes about 1/2 an hour the nurse had said when I made the appointment, but the info letter I got in the mail said come an hour early and plan for up to an hour for the procedure. Guess I won’t be heading back to work afterwards.

My blood pressure was high before they started.
It was even higher by the time they were done an hour and a half later.
I won’t go into the details, but it was NOT fun.
‘Here’s some ice paks to wear in your bra the next couple of days.’

What? Swelling? How much? Ohhh, LOTS.

But my doctor…

She’s my hero! She scheduled an appointment for me as soon as the results would be available (less than 48 hours) and on her day off mind you, Friday. She didn’t make me wait for a phone call. She didn’t make me wait over the weekend. I love you Vanessa Menghini!

So I pick up hubby and we go in together, just in case.
‘It’s all good. No cancer. (That’s the ‘C’ word, in case you didn’t know.)’ (sigh)

What a huge amount of stress. For two weeks time your whole perspective changes.

What have I put off doing that I really want to do?
What’s really important?
Who’s really important?
Life is short and getting shorter all the time.

Cancer isn’t as scary a word as it used to be. I’ve seen my brother beat it twice and I saw my mother-in-law live many years with it before it took her. Never the less, it still smells of death. It was just 5 months ago that I gave the eulogy at Patti’s funeral after her 8 months of battling leukemia. We were the same age. There were things she still wanted to do that she didn’t get to do, things she wanted to say, that she didn’t get to say.

I guess the ‘C’ word makes you ramble. It definitely causes introspection.