The Girls Are Allright

My ob/gyn has been urging me to get a "baseline" mammogram since I turned thirty-five. Not because she was particularly concerned about anything (she wasn't) or because I have a family history of breast cancer (I don't), but because she likes to err on the side of caution and wanted something to compare future films to.

It has been on the bottom of my "To Do" list for the past two years. Every time I crossed out completed items and rewrote the list, I would write "Get Mammogram" at the bottom, right after "Family Portrait" (another one of my recurring tasks). I was not afraid of the mammogram, I just didn't want to take my clothes off and put my boobs in a vice.

Anyway, I finally went on Tuesday and it wasn't so bad. Awkward, but not intolerable. And the technician explained that they often have to do callbacks, especially for younger women, because our breast tissue is denser and more fibrous, sometimes causing perfectly benign things to show up that still need to be re-examined. She told me not to be concerned if I get a callback, but I was too busy composing a blog post in my head in which I planned to make fun of the name of the imaging machine (the MAMMOMAT) and compare my ta-ta to a Panini sandwich.

I walked out of that imaging center and forgot I'd ever been there until the next day, when I got a phone call that there was something on my left girl which the radiologist wasn't seeing on my right girl. They wanted to take some more pictures of the girls. When could I come back? Immediately my heart dropped into my stomach cavity. I was going to die.

As much as the P-Dawg reassured me this kind of thing happens all the time - it's a screening test, after all - and that it's better to err on the side of caution, you know I was Googling "breast cancer at age 36 with no family history chances of dying from" all evening long. I had a fitful slumber and when I arrived at the imaging center the next day, the MAMMOMAT suddenly looked very sinister.

The technician said, "We're just going to get a few more images, this time with more compression" And I was like, "How long do I have? Four? Six months?"

But I obediently put my ta-ta on the shelf and a few moments later I discovered that "more compression" means "let's make a pancake." Then I sat down in the darkened room with my blue front-opening gown and a copy of People magazine and waited.

Finally, the tech returned and said, "The radiologist would like just a few more images. I'll be right back, but in the meantime, here's a pen and paper for you to start composing your Last Will and Testament." Did she really say that? I can't be sure.

More images followed. Then more waiting. My life flashed before my eyes. I remembered being three and handing my binky over to the garbage men, being attacked by Pooki the poodle at age four, and the time in fifth grade when I stole Jeannie Hojniki's Hello Kitty eraser.

The technician returned and said, "Doctor D. would like to go ahead and do an ultrasound" and that's all it took to convince me that I was not long for this world. So, still in my blue gown and holding my unread People magazine, I shuffled over to the ultrasound waiting area, where I sat alone for an hour, sweating bullets. By the time they called me into the ultrasound room, I had already written my own obituary and composed farewell letters to my children in my head.

The ultrasound was totally clear. The radiologist came in and told me that there had been a spot on one of my films which he suspected was just some dense tissue overlapping, but he wanted to be safe and rule out something more ominous, which he did. And that is very, very good. I do wish he had come in and told me all that before I had a chance to convince myself that I was mortally ill.

Tonight I am very thankful. And I thought I'd share my experience so that if anyone else out there ends up in the same situation, they might be spared a day of needless worry. I can't decide if I never want to get another mammogram again, or if I want to go back every week, just to be on the safe side.

And . . . I wish I could, for once, see the glass as half full instead of half empty, that I wasn't the kind of person who can go from sunshine and rainbows to the depths of despair in the space of thirty minutes.