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My Left Boob! Part Deux

Filed Under: Life
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I put off taking my shower yesterday for as long as I could; I’m pretty sure I put it off so long in hopes I would miss my appointment.

My first lesson in this whole thing is when people ask you, “How are you today?” they don’t really want the truth. And I’m not trashing anyone.

Seriously. Not. Trashing.

But after the fourth person asked those four words, I quit trying to say what I knew they wanted to hear and I kind of pulled the funk hoodie up over my head and started telling the truth:

  • Well, I’m here.
  • I REALLY don’t want to be here right now.
  • Great. Except for the whole bleeding nipple thing.–In my defense, that was to my doc’s nurse who already KNEW how I was doing.
  • I’ve had better days.

I’m pretty sure I broke some kind of patient/caregiver protocol.

What had happened was…

I went to the doctor’s appointment and was mildly shocked by the fact I wasn’t concerned by what the scale would read. Then again, my mental state wasn’t exactly “stable” at that point and I was all worried about ole Lefty–Note to self: come up with better name for left breast.

And if you’re uncomfortable right now, stop reading. You’ve been warned. My boob is the topic of conversation…hence the title–your first clue.

Professor Plum with the candlestick!

I got in. I got weighed–weight was down. Hazzah! Then came the vitals.

I’ve never been one to have the sweaty palms and shakes like you see on TV but I’ll be damned if my hands weren’t clammy and my whole body wasn’t twitching. Not cute, let me tell ya.

I warned the tech my BP was going to be high and she just smiled that, “You have no clue what you’re talking about.” smile. Sure enough my blood pressure was 136/90. I’m normally on the low end of normal. Guess I really was nervous.

Medical history was taken and all that jazz and then my doc came in.

You should have seen the look on his face. He asked me how I was doing and I burst into tears. Which sucked cause that’s not being strong and all that.

We talked for a minute and he assured me everything was probably going to be OK and he handed me this big ole specimen cup.

Him: Do you think you can express any in here?

Me: There’s NO WAY I can fill that thing. [It was bigger than a shot glass.]

He left me to my expressing. I can just imagine you cringing right now. Which is probably why I keep writing, “expressing.”

At any rate, Doc came back in and sent in the chick to take vials of blood and sent me off to schedule my mammogram. And this is when you’re going to know I’m crazy…though I like to think I wasn’t being totally crazy but just in a bit of shock.

I stood at the desk and that thing’s so high it comes almost to my chin and I asked the desk chick if I could have any input on when my mammogram would be scheduled. The look she gave me should have told me she was feeding me rope on which I would hang myself.

Me: Well…you see…I have this conference I’m supposed to be speak at and that’s at the end of the month so is there any way this could be before the last week in January or maybe like the first week in February?

Her: It’s scheduled for today and there’s no way I would let you put it off that long with a diagnosis like this.

Me: Diagnosis? He didn’t tell me about a diagnosis…

Her: Bleeding from the nipple.

Me: *snort* Imagine trying to casually fit THAT in a conversation.

To her credit, she laughed.

The mammogram was for later that day…like an hour later. These people don’t play around when it comes to left boobs!

Like you, I have heard horror stories about mammograms and I’m hear to tell you, if you have pancake boobs, you have nothing to worry about. And the ultrasound was a cakewalk.

Pancakes and cakes whilst discussing boobs and mammograms cause that’s how I roll.

The mammography tech took everything off to the Radiologist and when she came back, she said he–the Radiologist–didn’t see anything that would indicate further attention from their facility.

Which rocks. Just wait until the blood work comes back and it’ll be easy sailing from then on.

So today was pretty sweet. I got some work done. The kids and I played. I bought Tucker some celebratory beer for getting his MBA stuff in. Good day.

And then, around 1500, I got a call from my doctor’s office saying they had scheduled a ductogram–I linked that for ya. You’re welcome.–for me and they’d be calling me with an appointment time.

You can imagine my confusion.

It was around that time I lost my shit. I had spent all of yesterday worried I had a tumah–you have to say it like that–and then I didn’t and YAY!!! and then I have to have needle shoved into my boob. Talk about a roller coaster of a couple of days.

Here’s where the really cool part comes in.

My doctor isn’t the sort of guy who EMOTES; to say he’s reserved is to be generous. That’s one reason why the look on his face scared me.

When  I called his office back to double check if they really were really sure they really wanted to stick a needle in my nipple and put some contrast up in there, I might have gotten a bit upset. I didn’t holler at them or anything. I just might have ALLEGEDLY not been able to talk cause I was doing that girl squeaky crying thing.

Doc called me.

He reassured me that he was 99.999% sure that everything was going to turn out OK and that my films were beautiful. He said he wanted me to have this test done to make sure–for me and him–that there was nothing to worry about.

He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to care. He didn’t have to be a badass doc.

Dude’s got my back/boob so I’ll go in there on the 20th and try not to be a total baby and I’ll get through this needle crap.

And we’ll go from there.