8/15/2012- Prequel: Gyno and Mammo Day! Yay! pause NOT!

August 15, 2012 - Wednesday

FINALLY! I made the doctor appointment for my women’s wellness exam a couple weeks ago, and the day is finally here.  With our new insurance, I get $50 in the mail for doing this! Woo-hoo!  I hadn’t been to the doctor for over seven years (not counting the one visit to the emergency room for my back and treatment for that in 2010).  I had been seeing a back pain specialist and received injections for my back every now and then, but I have no primary care physician, and I had not been to a doctor for my annual pap test in seven years since I was last in New York.

I scheduled the day off as these appointments are always during a workday.  I was feeling good about getting this done.  Earlier this year in June, I had also finally went to the dentist after not going for over fifteen years!  That was a little painful, but all went well, and I now have clean teeth and healthy gums.  Surprisingly, no cavities!  This is the year of my health all getting caught up after years of neglect.  I was a bit anxious, not only because this damn exam is always awkward, but I was afraid I might have cervical cancer after not being screened for so long.  I asked that they also run blood tests for everything under the sun, so that was a bit nerve-wrecking too.   I hadn’t been living a dangerous lifestyle and I made sure to go to professional licensed people when I got my last tattoo, but you still have that slight possibility that a test will come back positive with something.

I get there and the doctor I had been referred to by a co-worker was booked a year in advance, so I agreed when I made the appointment two weeks ago to be examined by the nurse who also does the pap exams.  To my delight, she’s a pleasant older woman who moved to Arizona from Long Island, New York.   I am greeted by her assistant first who weighs me.  I go to the nurse’s office and we have a discussion about my prior medical history and how long it has been since my last exam.  I am very comfortable with her.  I think the Long Island accent makes me feel better too (can’t help it, I love my New Yorker’s!).  She’s absolutely delightful and very informative.  The moment finally comes where she leads me to the exam room.  I’m given weird two separate pieces of what I was expecting to be one hospital gown.  Nope.  The one part is like half a cape- no arms, just covers over your shoulders to your waist like a cape (looks like a Christmas tree skirt).  The lower part is more like a towel, just a rectangle piece of hospital gown type material.  I undress and wait for her to come back.  She comes back and has me sit in the exam table.  Apparently, I was not supposed to wrap the bottom half like a sarong the way I did (all the island people know what this is).  It’s funny and we laugh. 

Ugh!  The moment comes.  She tells me to put my legs in the stir-ups and says knees over, not feet- whatever that means- lol!  I guess I did it right.  All the men reading this—this is the crap women have to go through every year!  Maybe because it has been over seven years since my last pap that this feels more awkward than usual, but the awkwardness never ends.  It just seems so unnatural and against everything I was ever taught as a child by my mother trying to protect me from child molesters- “Never talk to a stranger and always tell mom if a stranger touches you down there.”  Yet, as a woman, I am supposed to let a stranger touch and scrape my insides down there- lol!  The worst!  God bless this woman as she tries to talk me through it and explains what she is doing, which I very much appreciate.  BUT she asks me questions and expects me to answer as she’s in my vagina scraping my cervix or whatever it is they do down there!  I wanted to say, please just finish and do it, I can’t talk! Lol!  But I endured and answered her and told her yes, I am fine (really thinking, wtf? Don’t talk to me and just do it- lol!). Finally, that part is over. 

Next, she comes to me as I’m lying down still and begins to feel my breast.  I’m thinking, sheesh! This woman is really feeling me up.  I don’t think I’ve ever had an exam feel my boobs so much.  She then begins talking in medical term, something something nodules blah blah.  Finally, I said, what does that mean? And she breaks it down, “You have lumpy breasts.”  Oh!  I laughed, that’s better, now that, I understand.  She then takes my hand and guides it to feel my right breast and asks me whether I feel the lumps.  I responded I felt something, but honestly, I don’t know how boobs are suppose to feel and I’ve actually never really felt my own before either, so I wouldn’t know what’s not normal.  She continues that she is going to refer me for a mammogram.  I’m still getting over my vagina being assaulted and boobs felt up.  I don’t think I have any fear about a mammogram at this point in time. 

After I get dressed, I’m taken to another room, where there is literally a recliner (like a recliner your grandfather sat in in the living room while watching TV) not a hospital or clinic chair.  I am told to sit in the recliner and that’s when my blood is taken and I sign all the forms about being tested for HIV etc.  That’s done, and I’m lead to another inner receptionist area where the lady has called the place that does mammograms, because I explained I took the whole day off and don’t want to take another day off if this can get done today.  It’s my lucky day!  They have an opening at the mammogram place in the next hour.  The people at the gyno office also mention this place is awesome, because they read your results right then and there—so no waiting.  I did not know what that meant or what a good thing that was until later would I appreciate that.  I was thinking of attending the baby shower the firm was throwing for one of my bosses later that day, but now that was not going to happen. 

I drive and find my way to the mammogram place.  It’s located in an office building that also has other professional offices, including law offices.  The elevator is old and reminds me of the old elevators in NYC.  I don’t know where the stairs are, so I’m forced to ride it just one floor up.  I get off on the second floor and finally find this place.  I tell them I’m here for my appointment at 12:50 pm.  They take my insurance information and tell me to wait in the waiting room and finish filling more forms.  The waiting room is dimly lit, almost dark.  It looks like an upscale place and everyone seems professional.  Finally, I get called back.  I am handed another cape that looks like the Christmas tree skirt I had on earlier at the gyno.  The lady leads me to a dressing room, and it looks like the ones in the store where you try clothes on and also hands me a plastic bag to place my clothes in.  I undress from the waist up and put on the cape and my clothes in the bag.  I walk out and she shows me another waiting room to wait in my cape for my turn, where I am alone waiting.  I glimpse another lady sitting with a younger girl in an adjacent waiting room and wonder why we are in two different waiting rooms.  Finally, I am called and walked to the room where a tech is waiting with a big machine.  It’s just the two of us, and she asks me if I’m wearing deodorant.  I respond yes, and she hands me baby wipes to wipe off the deodorant.  I did not know I was suppose to do this, so now I’m afraid the test will be wrong or the machine will electrocute me because I had put on deodorant that morning (lol!- remember this mammogram was just scheduled an hour earlier! I had no idea how to prep for it).  OMG! My vagina was thoroughly assaulted a few hours earlier, and now my boobs were about to be fully assaulted times ten!  Thankfully, the tech was not a hott young man, or I would have died- just sayin… lol!  This woman was a short haired blond petite woman.  She was determined to take every kind of picture of my boobs any way she could!  She literally bear hugged me from behind to get my boob in a position she wanted it in.  At first she tried to work with the armless Christmas tree skirt around one of my boobs while the other was being squished, but it became too much of a balancing act.  I found it quite silly that we were even trying to leave the cape on.  I gladly threw it off and continued with this assault.  The machine would flip sideways and up and down and she would have my arms positioned in a certain way where I was grabbing the machine with one hand and God only knows where my other arm was.  I was being twisted and told “don’t move” before she would run the machine (like I had a choice!- my boob is being squished and my arms are twisted, I couldn’t move if the building were in fire! Lol! Just saying…).  OMG! Finally, it is all over, or so I thought.  I’m led to that other waiting room where that other lady was waiting earlier.  I’m alone there.  The doctor calls me and leads me to an exam room where there’s an ultra sound machine.  I sit on the exam table.  She looks like a younger middle aged pretty woman.  She’s serious with me.  I’m still trying to digest the days events….

She looks at me and says, it’s interesting that your doctor referred you here because of concerns about the lumps in your right breast, because those look like they are benign cysts.  She continues, it’s interesting because we see something in your left breast that is causing concern, because the images are a sign of possible early cancer.  I’m not sure at this point what my mind is thinking, if anything… She continues to give me an education on breasts.  She says I have very fibrous breasts and these benign cysts are common in women in their 30’s forward.  She also begins to explain calcifications and says that this is also normal as women age especially in their 30’s that calcifications would form.  She made an analogy to the water in phoenix and how the calcium build up forms.  I took it to mean my milk ducks were expiring for not having kids and so calcification began (I’m sure I’m wrong, but this is how I took it).  She said the spread of calcification is normal, but that certain types of clustering of these calcifications are a sign of cancer, and I have a clustering in my left breast.  She then has me lay down the exam table as she is going to ultra sound my breasts.  She turns off the lights, except one light like a spotlight is directly on me, and all I remember is lying down and seeing all that darkness surrounding that one spotlight.  I felt like I was in a movie.  She had put gel on my boobs and was doing the ultra sound and taking pictures and talking, but it all got blocked out.  All I saw was that one bright light in that dark room, and the word cancer was floating around there somewhere.   I imagined that’s how the surgery table must feel.  My brain just freaked out, and it was like God was there talking to me as I lay numb oblivious to the ultra sound exam taking place.  This is where it all became so surreal.  Disbelief. Numbness.  Shock. 

It’s finally over and I could get dressed and use some of the deodorant they have there.  The doctor tells me that I need to have a biopsy done on my left breast where they see the calcifications.  I go out to the front reception area where the best that the unhelpful receptionist could give me was two weeks later!  I take it- August 29 is the day I will have my biopsy done.  What a grueling next two weeks this would be…. On the bright side, in two weeks, I will have completed the 60 day Insanity workout plan, so I was grateful for that.  I would not be able to work out the way insanity makes me workout after the biopsy, so it was good that all my hard work would not be in vain, because I would finish that Sunday before the biopsy.  I went home.  I thought about it, but I don’t think anything really hit me this day.  Still numb. Not sure I have a right to feel worried.    

The next day, Thursday, crap!  The brain gets more mental. It sinks in that not everybody gets a mammogram at 33 years old, and not everyone gets a biopsy after the mammogram at any age.  I start reading about breast cancer and calcifications online.  I don’t want to say shit to anyone, because what if the test came back negative and I don’t have cancer—I would feel foolish.  I didn’t want to tell my parents either for the same reason, and I didn’t need them freaking out, because nothing has been confirmed.  This was the hardest secret I have ever had to keep.  I was not doing a good job.  I told one of my co-workers, and it just felt good to let someone know.  I also told my boss whose baby shower I missed, because I felt bad for missing it.  Each time I told someone, I cried.  I finally told my two cousins here, but made them swear not to say anything to the family as I did not want unnecessary stress about it when I could very well be fine.  Their mom’s family was having their annual San Roque novena in Peoria and I wanted prayer.  I asked them to pray without telling my aunt, and I made sure to attend that Saturday and pray myself.  For those of you who don’t know Saint San Roque is the patron saint of terminal illness and contagious disease in the Catholic faith. 

Gosh! The not knowing aspect of it all is truly the WORST! That Thursday and Friday,  I cried a lot in my office, and I could not focus.  I felt like a loser, because I didn’t even have confirmation that I had cancer, it was all still just a possibility.  I billed probably only one hour each of those days.  Sucked!  Wasn’t sure how I would explain that to my boss, but I was just not mentally there….

That weekend, the 18^th, I attend the San Roque novena.  It is good to see all my cousin’s family.  They are a fun bunch and have always treated me as if I was really part of their family.  I am lucky for this.  Another good thing that happens this day is my friend’s friend, a guy we had met over a month ago was asking for my number.  Just my luck- all this time with no dating prospects, I met someone who is interested and I’m mentally unstable because I might have cancer.  *sigh*  I figure I have no confirmation, so why the hell not.  I actually liked this guy, and I need to stay distracted…. This is the journey of SINGLE 33 year old woman.  Dating is part of it.  Dating alone at this age sucks.  I could journal about that, but my parents know about this blog, so another anonymous blog maybe, someday- lol!  Dating with cancer sucks MORE!  Lol!  It’s a LONG two weeks until the biopsy on the 29^th….