Why Me?

April of last year I went to the health clinic to get my annual mammogram. The x-rays showed something they thought was unusual so they sent me on to the Regional Medical Center to get a closer look at it. After examining the new x-rays the Radiologist said he could not see anything definite but he wanted me to come back in six months for a recheck. That turned out to be just before Thanksgiving so I put it off until after the holidays because, I now realize, I was afraid of bad news and did not want my holiday ruined.

January 3rd I went back for the regular series of x-rays and was told by the technician that I would need two more as the ones she had just done showed a slight change from my previous x-rays. The Radiologist wanted her to x-ray a smaller area of my breast to get a better look at the change. I told her I had gone through this once before and it had turned out to be a cyst. The next step would probably be an ultrasound so I wasn't worried about it. I talked to my sister later in the week and she said I sounded calm and that if this was happening to her she would be worried to death. I admitted I was a bit worried as I seemed to be surrounded by cancer. I had read Kelly Corrigan's book The Middle Place a couple of months before, I had talked to a family member on my husband's side who was just finishing up her cancer treatment a week ago, I had just finished reading Meridith Baxter's book Untie, and I had read an article in the paper about a woman's change of getting breast cancer when there is no family history of it. I also had a growth removed from my face the day before I talked to my sister because I had been worried it may be pre-cancerous. My sister said I was just at that place you get when you are aware of what is on your mind. Like when you buy a new car and all of a sudden you see that model of car everywhere you look. I agreed and said I really wasn't that worried. I also told her that if I did not hear from my doctor by the end of the week I was calling the clinic myself the following Monday.

On Monday morning this week I called the clinic and found out my doctor had not received the mammogram results yet. The person I talked to said not to worry as she would call the Radiology Department at the hospital and find out what was going on. Later that day she called back to say the x-rays had not been read yet because there was only one Radiologist at the hospital. He would get to them by Friday. Friday? Friday? I wasn't sure I could wait that long. I hung up the phone as a spasm of fear shot through my body. My nonchalant attitude had just been blown away by the realization that I could have breast cancer. I had looked at the image of my breast at the hospital and what I saw looked nothing like the image of the cyst I had looked at years ago. My mind had blocked that out at the time. I wasn't ready to face it then and I wasn't ready now but I could no longer deny that cancer was a possibility. I thought, why me?, and in the next breath I thought, why not me? So what if there wasn't any breast cancer in my family. Women with no family history developed cancer all the time. It was just the luck of the draw, not a punishment, and most assuredly not something bad happening to a good person. It just was. I also saw that my deciding to get that small skin growth removed when I did was my way of asserting control over what was happening to me. My breast was figuratively in other hands until that report came in but my face was in my own. I would act with the speed and decisiveness needed to take care of the problem.

On Tuesday I went back to the clinic to have the two small stitches in my face removed. The weight of that missing report pressing heavy on my mind as I sat in the waiting room. A nurse called my name and when I stepped through the door that separated the waiting room from the clinic itself she handed me a copy of the Radiology report I had been expecting all week. I glanced at it and then at her. She was smiling but that did not registered in my brain. I began reading the report and the words BENIGN FINDINGS. I WOULD RECOMMEND A BILATERAL MAMMOGRAM AT THE TIME OF HER ANNUAL EXAMINATION WHICH APPARENTLY IS APRIL jumped out at me. Benign findings. My hands started shaking and I felt lightheaded. I don't have breast cancer. I don't have breast cancer. I looked back up at the nurse and saw she was still smiling at me. That smile is going to stay with me a long time.

I'd like to say that this experience changed me in some profound way but it didn't. It has cause me to ponder my life so there was a tiny shift in my thinking. Of course if you are a proponent of the Butterfly Effect you would believe that tiny shift could cause big changes in my life. We will see. I myself am not a proponent of that theory or of the pop-philosophy that we should live our lives as if each day is our last. My miniscule brush with death did nothing to change that. If you are living your live as if each day is your last then you are not living it in the present. Part of the joy of life is stopping to smell the roses and I don't think that is possible if you are trying to grab all the gusto you can before you kick the bucket. I'd rather slow down and enjoy all those beautiful the roses.