I go for my yearly
mammogram
and
the lady says
if I don’t get a call
in two or three days,
that means
everything is
fine
and then
a postcard comes
in a week.
But,
I do get a call
the very next day
in the car,
coming home
from volunteering
with the dogs.
The nurse says,
the radiologist
didn’t like
what
he saw.
She says,
you have to
come back
and get a
different
mammogram
and
if he doesn’t like
that one,
an ultrasound
too,
she says.
I say,
I’m in my car
passing
Mt. Sinai
right now.
I say,
I can drop my dogs
home
and
be there in
five minutes,
I say.
No,
that won’t work,
she says,
I don’t have any
radiologists
right now.
The soonest I
can get you in
is next
Wednesday,
she says,
at 2:00,
she says.
Okay,
I say,
but there’s
no way that
I can get in
earlier?
Well,
she says,
I can put you
on the
waiting list
for cancellations,
but,
you should know,
most people
just don’t
cancel
for this sort of
thing.
Okay,
I say.
I drive home.
I have a bad
feeling.
I call the
number back.
I say,
can you tell
me
which breast
he doesn’t
like?
I say.
She shuffles some
papers
and says
he doesn’t
like
the right one.
Oh,
I say,
thanks,
I say,
see you next
week,
I say.
Now
my right
breast
is hurting.
I know
it’s in my head
but
it’s hurting
anyhow.
The radiologist
doesn’t like
my
right
breast,
I say
to Victor.
Victor just
looks
at me.
He never
knows
what
to say.
He looks back
at the computer
and keeps
playing Sudoku
while
I talk.
If I have to
get a
mastectomy,
I say
to
Victor,
I’m getting
a reconstruction
and I want
it to be
perky
and
I want my
left breast
fixed
to be
perky too,
and
I want to keep my
nipple,
I say,
I like my
nipples,
I say.
If you have
to have
a mastectomy,
Victor says,
you
may not be
allowed
to keep
your nipple,
he says,
it depends
where the
cancer
is.
I’m
fond
of my
nipples,
I say.
That doesn’t
matter,
he says.
You’re probably
fine,
he says,
it’s probably
nothing,
he says.
I have
a
bad
feeling,
I say.
Just
don’t think
about
it,
he says.
Okay,
I say,
but
I am
still
thinking
about it.
I am
thinking
about
Vera
and
Pat
and
Ruthie
and
Marcia
and
Sally
and
Michelle.
I call
Cindy,
but
she has a
kidney stone
traveling through her
and
she is helping Ken
to move
his collection
of weird-ass mugs
from
one room to
another
and
she will
call me back.
She has a kidney
stone,
and it
hurts
and she doesn’t
know
why I called,
and she
probably wasn’t even
told
that
I called,
because they were
busy,
and Ken
always
forgets to tell her,
so she
doesn’t call
back,
so I call
back the
next day
but
there is no
answer
and
what could I put
on an answering machine?
Then I get
an e mail
from Cindy,
that they have
guests for a few days
and her
kidney stone
has
still
not passed
and
it has been over
two weeks now,
and
I tried and tried
but
I can’t get her
to go to see
a nephrologist,
and now
she has guests
so I know
she can’t
talk anyhow,
besides,
her kidney stone
is
100% real,
I only have
fear
of something
that
probably is
nothing.
At night,
Victor
examines
my breast.
Do you feel
anything?
I say,
I feel your
ribs,
Victor says,
it really isn’t
fair,
he says,
you hardly have
any breasts
at
all,
but,
it’s probably
nothing,
he says.
I am
trying
to read
but I am not
listening
to the words.
I am
trying to paint
but
my mind
is off on a
journey
of its own.
Now it’s a week
later,
I am
in the first
waiting room.
I feel shaky
and
my brain feels like
it is filled up with
cottonwool.
People speak
to me,
but
the people
talking
in my head
are making
so much noise
that I don’t
hear the real people
until the second
or
maybe
third time
they speak.
The nurse
takes me to a
different
changing room
than
last time.
She gives me
a nubly soft
white
bathrobe,
that is decidedly
small.
For a regular
mammogram,
you get a light cotton
bathrobe that is
dark blue.
I’m wearing
“the doctor
is not
happy
with your
mammogram”
robe,
just like
The Scarlet
Letter.
The X-ray tech
takes three
magnified
images
of the spot,
I can see
the pictures;
they are pretty,
like
the sky
at night.
If the doctor
likes what he sees,
she says,
then he will send you
home,
she says,
then
she takes me
to a different waiting room,
this is “the room
where you wait
to see if the doctor
likes
the new images”
room.
All the women
are wearing
the nubly white
tiny
bathrobes.
I realize
that no one
has a bathrobe
that remotely
fits.
The nurse says,
these were really
nice bathrobes
at first
but then
they came back
from the laundry,
now they are half the size
they started out
and all
crooked.
I wonder
why
they didn’t
send them
back.
The larger ladies
in the room
cannot close their
robes.
We all look
silly.
The sign on
every door
says,
TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES!
but every single
woman gets
or makes
several calls
while in the room.
Who’s going to
yell at us?
Different nurses come
and call out names.
All these ladies
return to the room
after a while.
I realize I am
in “the doctor
doesn’t like
your new images
either”
room.
When the nurse
calls my name
I put away my
kindle
which is on the
same page
as when I
arrived
two hours before.
I follow her
to the
Ultrasound Room.
Okay then,
I say.
Vickie is nice
and
she talks to me.
She only does
breast ultrasounds;
she specialized.
She is looking for the
spot,
she says,
(Out
Out,
Damn Spot!
I whisper.)
but it’s small
and hard to
find,
she says.
My arm is above my head
for so long that my hand
falls asleep.
I just can’t seem
to find what
the doctor
sees
she says,
I say,
maybe it’s
nothing.
She says,
finally,
here it is!
I’ll show you
when we’re done.
She snaps
lots of pictures.
I say,
I saw the mammograms
and they just looked like
stars in a
constellation.
You’ll see this,
she says.
She pulls me up
by my hand that’s asleep
and I look
at the screen.
There is a
little teardrop shaped
spot
surrounded by dots.
It’s small,
but it has some
character,
I say.
I am shown back
to the
“this is where
you wait
to find out
what the
doctor sees
in your ultrasound”
room.
I open my
kindle,
but I can’t make out
the words.
A lady comes
after a while.
She is dressed
like a regular
person,
not like a
medical
person.
She says,
I’m Amy,
please come with me,
I am the
Patient Navigator.
I laugh,
I say,
your title is
actually
Patient Navigator?
She acts surprised
that I find it a
funny title,
I took her card
so people would
believe me.
She says,
the doctor saw a spot
that was there last year
but this year
it was bigger
so he wanted
to look at it
more closely.
She says,
two radiologists looked
at all your
images
and
they both think
your spot
is just an
errant
lymph node,
she says,
we need to see you
back in six months
for another
diagnostic mammogram,
she says.
I say,
if it got bigger,
why wait
six months
and
look again?
Why not
just biopsy it
and
be done
with it?
The Patient Navigator
stands up
and says,
follow me,
I’ll let you
talk to the
radiologist.
She navigates me
to another room.
I sit
and wait
again.
The doctor comes in.
He says he doesn’t
know why it’s gotten bigger
perhaps
it was because different people
did the
mammograms
a year apart,
but,
he says,
it looks like
a totally normal
lymph node.
I say,
are there usually
lymph nodes
inside
the breast tissue?
He says,
no,
if women have lymph nodes
in their breast tissue,
they are
usually along the side
and
you have them on the side
as well,
but this one is in the
middle,
which is
unusual.
Why not take
it out?
I say.
He says,
because it looks like
a totally normal
lymph node
that is in
an unusual place.
You come back
in six months
and
we’ll do this all
again,
he says,
it’s
probably
nothing,
if I thought
it were
something
I would tell you
and
we would
biopsy it.
I say,
okay,
thank you.
I go back to the changing
room and
change out of
the silly robe.
In the car
I call Victor
I tell him
what the doctor
said.
Victor says,
did you tell him that you fell
on that breast in January
hard enough to break
your ribs on that side?
I say,
no,
I didn’t say that.
He says,
you have to call
when you get home
and tell him;
that was
withholding
information!
So I call
when I get home.
After the phone mail,
I get a person
and I ask to leave a message
for the doctor.
I say,
I broke my ribs
on the right side
in January,
when I fell on a huge
glass sake bottle
onto the sidewalk
which also hurt my
breast.
She says she’ll
give him the note.
My phone is still silent
because of
the signs,
but I
forget
to turn it on again.
I notice a message
from the doctor.
He says,
falling really hard on
a large glass sake bottle
onto the sidewalk with
that breast
had absolutely
positively
nothing
to do with
this errant
lymph node.
He says,
call me
if you have
any questions
or concerns.
It is a nice message,
I decide to leave it
on my phone,
because,
it appears
it
really
is
nothing.
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