Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my life and cause everything to collapse, hurting, maiming, maybe even killing some of the performers. Was it two to three business days you told me? Was Monday a holiday? I checked the cell every few minutes thinking maybe the phone was still on vibrate. Answered lots of solicitations on the home phone just in case, somehow, the call from Arizona was the lab, knowing full well that the lab was up the street and that it would, in fact, be from my doctor's office that the call came. But it didn't come. Not for two, three, four, five, or six days. I waited and let myself be convinced and reassured by friends that no news was good news. "They would want you to know right away if it was indeed C," still no one wanted to say it and I surely did not want to hear the letters that follow 'c' in that word.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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