Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Lumps, Prayer, and Funbags

"What does one even wear to a mammogram?"

I flipped through the items hanging in my closet, experiencing a strange cocktail of frustration and fear. They had told me to wear a loose-fitting shirt, but it has been so freezing around here that I couldn't imagine leaving the house with less than three layers on. But, ever the rule-follower, I wanted to make sure I was following mammography protocol.

"I don't know what to wear."

My poor husband looked at me and asked with a certain level of "well duuuhhhh" in his voice, "Aren't they going to have you take your shirt off anyway?"

I wore a sweater.

Nine weeks ago, I never thought I would be sitting in the waiting room by the Breast Care desk awaiting my first mammogram at the age of 31, surrounded by ladies who would likely be heading to Denny's after their appointment for their free cup of coffee and discounted eggs and toast. Feeling like the toddler in the room only added to my mounting anxiety.

Can I just make a suggestion? I realize that hospitals have to be very vigilant about costs, but I think the robes in the mammography locker room need to be cuter. It's not like a labor and deliver robe where we just accept they're ugly because there's a very good chance there will be blood, mucus, vomit, and goodness knows what other kinds of fluids being strewn about like a rogue sprinkler with a loose hinge. And furthermore, the robe doesn't really matter anyway because you become so focus on the holycrapthisistheworstpainintheworld stuff that you don't even realize that your personal appearance is starting to resemble someone getting ready to be an extra on The Walking Dead.

But the robe in the mammogram room is only covering the top half, so I still had on my dark wash boot-cuts and heels. It's a bit comical when you see the ensemble being finished off by what looks like a jacket made of Quilted Northern.

Outfit issues aside, I did make it through what was one of the more nerve-wracking days in recent memory. I submitted myself to a thorough fondling by a delightful woman named Jean who I'm pretty sure has given breast exams in her sleep. I mean, chica was efficient.  Usually I need at least a glass of wine before something like this happens, but it was only 8:00 in the morning and I had to go back to work at my church job after the appointment, so I figured that was probably frowned upon. Not that alcohol is unbiblical. It's not. I'm just pretty sure it says something in Proverbs along the lines of "only the foolish woman partakes in excessive libations before rigorous breast manipulation." That's probably not in there. If it were, how else would so many children have been conceived?

I'm a terrible person.
I'm probably going to get in trouble for making jokes about the Bible. 

Back to the boob story. The weird thing (only one?) about the manual exam was that darling Jean couldn't find the lump that had caused all this business. Nine weeks ago, my doctor found it during my routine check-up and had me come back several weeks later to follow up to see if it had gone away. Instead, we found that it had stuck around and made a cozy little home in my breast and we even discovered a second little friend he had invited along to the party. The look of concern on my doctor's face was for real.

The "c" word came out.

Sweet heavens, not THAT "c" word. How vulgar do you think I am? I like my doctor very much! And I would never, EVER use that word in any situation. Anyone who uses that word deserves to get back-handed.

Speaking of, I felt like I had been back-handed when the words "cancer" and "possibility" came out of my doctor's mouth in the same sentence. She was recommending a mammogram and ultrasound, but was also quick to point out that she was being cautionary, not reactive. There was nothing she found in the exam to lead her to believe that I had some mack daddy aggressive tumor in there that needed treatment ASAP, but there was enough to lead her to believe that we needed more information, that it was better to err on the side of caution. It could easily be nothing. But cancer was in the conversation.

So there I was, a week and a half later, standing idly by while Jean arranged the girls into the right position on the machine so she could flatten them like a panini press. You know how when you have to take out the garbage and the bag is really full and heavy? It's hard to just toss it up into the big garbage can or dumpster, so you have to swing it a bit like a pendulum to get a little momentum going?

Yeah. It was like that.

I felt like even more of an idiot during the ultrasound. I had to keep fighting the urge to look at the screen and ask, "Is it a boy or a girl?" Every time I glanced over there, I just saw images that looked like what our TV used to look like back in the day when signal went out and you were stuck with a bunch of wavy lines and junk. Super not-interested. I caught a glimpse of a cover of a magazine on a rack on the far wall and I actually found myself interested in what Kim Kardashian was up to these days.

Y'all, that is what we like to call a "warning sign."

In my case, however, it was a sign that I was in a good place. I wasn't freaking out. Last weekend I was thinking about how I should make sure to buy some life insurance before my appointment just in case the news was bad and now here I was in the exam room, exposed and at Jean's mercy, thinking more about celebrity gossip than the possibility of a mass in my breast.

It was a "peace that surpasses understanding" alright. I highly doubt it's what Paul had in mind as he penned his letter to the Philippians, but I still maintain that my lack of panic was an answered prayer. I had so many people praying for me while I was there. They were praying for clear scans, for strength, for courage, and for a peace to come over me so that I could trust God with whatever resulted.

I felt it.

And I haven't even told you the best part. My scans were CLEAR. Neither the tech nor the radiologist could find the lump that had sent me there in the first place. There was a little inflammation on a lymph node and some fibrocystic tissue hanging around in there, but the actual large, hard, tender lump that had tormented my thoughts for more than two months was NOT THERE.

Now, I'm not saying that all those prayers caused that lump to disappear. I'm well aware there are a good number of explanations for why that lump went away like it did. All I know is that one day it was there - I could touch it and feel it - and then suddenly it was not.

Do I believe that the God of all creation could have maybe, just maybe, heard the prayers of a few of his kids and done a little mini-miracle in the left boob of one of them?

Yes. Yes, I do.

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