Let’s talk about health, shall we? By now your New Year’s Resolutions are but crumpled, tear-stained wads dangling from the corner of your vision board, anyways, right?
Let’s move onward to that annual pleasure ladies endure —
The Mammogram.
This year’s adventure was especially horrendous exciting for me because immediately after getting flattened by an Indian steamroller of a technician I was called in for an ultrasound.
*beat ominous drums* *increase innocent woman’s heart rate* *shorten her life* *whiten her already white hair*
I was told while waiting, “Don’t worry until you need to worry.” Don’t worry. Don’t worry?!
Oh, okay since you put it that way.
The short attention span version long story short is nothing showed up on the ultrasound even though some scary, awful, unidentifiable blob showed up on the soul- boob-crushing mammogram.
But nothing was just good enough reason to have me get the golden ticket for my first MRI.
But, wait, did you know you can’t get a breast MRI until at least five days after your period (what, TMI?) but not so long after as whenever that day was that you call to schedule the freaking thing?
And did you know that after waiting for weeks for my period (ladies, answer this: what happens to your period during times of stress? if you answered, it comes late, you WIN.) and finally laying down on my belly with arms extended like Superman, the MRI machine would chug and bang and shimmy enough that I waited for its wings to open and fly me off with Dick Van Dyke singing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”?
The now-longer short version is I’m fine even though my mostly droopy healthy boob (not pictured below) endured such an extensively thorough smashing that veins near my sternum had formed some “odd” (to quote the professionals) cheerleader pyramid of fear on the mammogram.
What I’ve learned from this utterly stressful month is:
a. modern medicine loves its tests.
b. my mental health life is fragile and continually proves itself not in your control.
c. i’m still a stress eater.
d. enduring, even for a moment, a possible threat to your life opens you up to empathize with others’ fear and pain on this planet.
e. my body may betray me, but my mind will probably beat it to the punch.
Be well.
