An Urgent Mammogram (2)

An Urgent Mammogram (2)

The next Friday finally arrived. There was no fanfare. I made a half hearted attempt to work then gave up and did what I had been doing the day before. I waited. I once read an interview with Jerry Sienfeld where he talked about meeting an important director for the first time. He explained that he got up, got showered and dressed and then waited because he just couldn’t do anything else. Well, that was me. I got up, got dressed and waited until it was time to go to the hospital.

Of course I sat in front of my computer while I did this. I played ten thousand games of solitaire. I even looked at breast cancer images on the Internet in some desperate attempt to learn how to read x-rays.

There are times when I marvel at Dave’s and my combined stupidity. This process has been hard on both of us. In my Teflon brain times I truly believe that Dave has kept his sanity. Under normal circumstances, I would recognise his behaviour and intuitively know that he’s actually making bad decisions. The drive to the hospital is a glaring example.

The mammograms are taken at a local hospital. By car it is a four minute drive. I could drive myself but he is committed to being there for me, even if this means him waiting in the car.

We sometimes make our own wine, actually the wine shop makes the wine, we just bottle it. That mammogram morning John, from the wine shop called to say our wine was ready for bottling. At first we were both going to go to the hospital then drop by the wine store to bottle.

I had the great revelation that Dave should drop me off at the hospital and go bottle the wine while I got mammoed. Dave thought this was a great idea. See what I mean about the combined stupidity part? Then I got even stupider.

“Don’t pick me up,” I actually said. “I probably won’t be long and I’ll just walk over when I’m done.” Duh, I don’t walk anywhere if I can drive. I don’t even know that part of town very well. Dave thought this was an equally grand idea, a wonderfully productive use of his time and we could save money by not having to pay for parking.

He dropped me off at the hospital. I was early for a change but it worked in my favour as there was a no-show and I got her appointment. I had a terribly efficient nurse and I was back out the front door within half an hour. In that short time the sky had clouded over and the wind blew ominously.

I was wearing my mammogram comfort shoes, little bright blue croc knock-offs, that I soon found out were impossible to run in. I set off on an obviously well worn path through bushes that surround one side of the hospital. I thought I was going in the right direction. And I was, sort of, if there hadn’t been the Pretty River between me and the other side of the road that I needed to be on.

I walked the path by the river to the main highway. The rain started to fall. I tried to run but the rubber bottoms of my shoes kept sticking to the road and after almost falling twice I developed a little skip, hop swoosh kind of movement that was fractionally faster than walking. I hoped no one recognized me. Then I hoped someone would and give me a drive.

By the time I finally got the wine store I was soaking wet and Dave was loading the last box of wine into the truck. “Good timing,” he said.
We put the dog’s towel from the back seat onto my passenger seat to save the cloth from getting wet. Oddly, I did think I’d made good time considering the route I had taken and I was pleased to be out of the rain and in a warm truck.

At home Dave loaded the boxes of wine into the sauna. (We use it for storage.)

We decided the wine would have aged long enough on the drive home and opened a bottle. It was rather tart but it contained alcohol and when poured into a nice crystal glass appeared normal. I took my wine to my office and wrote an email to Larry. He didn’t know it at the time but he was becoming my life-line through this ordeal.

Hi Larry,

Did I ever irritate you with my eternal optimism back in the days when you were depressed? I'm sure I must have. On the other hand, I like being optimistic and happy. All this cancer stuff and continual mammograms and uncertainty and being on-goingly on the edge of my nerves is making me extremely stressed. Writing this helps. Thanks for reading, or pretending to, it doesn't matter. It makes me feel better.

Since the area from the surgery is still a bit 'solid' and parts still sore I wasn't looking forward to having my breast mashed between metal plates. Having said that, since the outcome is so important and I have been waiting sooooo long it I was very anxious to have the test and get the results.

I got the most unfriendly nurse I have had to date. On the other hand, she was so not into making what is an uncomfortable procedure comfortable that she got things done in record time. She also got me to thinking in a very real way. Snippets of our actual conversation while doing the 'urgent' mammogram today a week after I was told I needed one urgently. I thought I had some measure of control over what had happened. Guess it is not so.

Her: Who is your Oncologist?
Me: I don't have one right now. (I won't use the one I met in Barrie.)
Her: Who is your main physician?
Me: My GP.....I guess(?)
Her: Who recommended a lumpectomy?
Me: (Had to think for a moment.) My GP and the surgeon with whom the GP's office staff made the appointment.
Her: Do you know why they made that decision?
Me: Ummm, not really. (Seemed to make a lot of sense at the time though.)
I handed her the card of Dr. S, my newly found, extremely respected and highly regarded Oncology Radiologist from the esteemed Sunnybrook Hospital.
Me: This is my Dr. now.....but only if my mammogram is clean. If it's not then I'm back to the surgeon. (The one who did the lumpectomy that resulted in an infected vein.)
Her: I see.
(I had already asked so I knew there wasn’t a radiologist was on duty.)
Me: I would like to see my x-rays today.
Her: The Radiologist has to see them first.
Me: I've seen my other ones and I'd like to see mine from today so I don't have to spend the weekend in yet another state of high anxiety.
Her: Okay, but I cannot answer any questions so don't ask and I normally wouldn't do this.

She went away with the negatives then brought them back and put them in a light box. I did not ask any questions. I looked intently and as intelligently as I could at the results while realizing that I had no idea what I was really looking at. To the best of my untrained eye it looks worse than it did in May. I could be wrong. I could be seeing scar tissue. I could be seeing any number of things that are not cancerous at all, but it looked to me like more than before even though now 1/3 of my breast is gone.

Larry, I'm a reasonably intelligent person. In hind-sight, I have simply bopped along from pillar to post Dr-wise and trusted most of them to do the right thing while being in a state of shock. How on earth could someone with no self-esteem or a language barrier manage this process? The Oncologist in Barrie would already have had me on some toxic drug after meeting me for less than twenty minutes and without the outcome of today's mammogram.

I'm being very 'ME' centric right now. I don't like this feeling.

Laura

I made it through the weekend. At nine-thirty on Monday morning the phone rang. I picked it up hoping against hope it would be the results from the x-ray and it was the results. The mammograms taken on Friday were not clear enough for the radiologist to read. Could I come back this Friday for more urgent mammograms? Urgent has many meanings I guess. To me urgent is now or at least within the hour, perhaps the same day? Oh, and next weekend is a long weekend so the results will probably not be in until mid week next week.

I managed to curb my rage and said I’d be there. I didn’t throw the phone though I wanted to desperately hit something or some one.