Greetings…

Fair warning, today’s column will probably bore the male readers
to death and I apologize ahead of time, but given the amount of
female readers who will be able to relate, I felt the need to
“share” my latest and greatest “mammogram moment”…

Men, you have my permission to stop reading, delete, and be
thankful that you can admire boobs and not have to own a pair…

Because of past boob problems, (lumps and cysts, non-cancerous),
I have to have a mammogram every four months, which spreads to six
months with me because quite frankly, I don’t mind having a “glow”
on occasion, but am concerned about all the “rays” that they want
to shoot into me for the test…

On Friday, I went to the breast center where they do a little more
than the standard mammogram. Everyone there was so excited because
of some new machine they are now using that gives a digital image
that is much clearer and accurate than the previous type of mammogram
machine…

I went through the usual, “smash and flatten”, and I gotta tell you,
it seemed MUCH more painful than previous ones and by the bruise I
have on my chest bone, I think I’m right. I don’t know if I have a
bruise because it is “rougher” or because I had TWO full mammograms
on the left boob. Yeah, I said two…

After the first one, as always, the tech has you wait to make sure
the images are good enough for the Radiologist to examine. Sometimes
an additional image needs to be taken and this also happened. No
Problem, I was starting to lose feeling in the left boob anyway,
so go ahead and knock yourself out!

I was asked to sit in the little waiting room where other women were
sitting in our cute little pink jackets. A tech would come up to
a woman, hand her a sheet, tell her everything looked good, but her
doctor would get the official report within 5 days. One by one, each
woman got her piece of paper and left. I ended up being the only one
in there and no one was handing me a sheet and a Bon Voyage…

Hmmmmmmm, I said to myself…

The tech finally came back, without a sheet in her hand and asked if
I would go with her. We headed down the hall and back into the room
with the Mammo Pancake and Flapjack maker…

“We need another full set of images”.

Hmmmmmmmm, I said to myself…

I got there at 9:00 A.M. it was now 10:00 and I told her that I had
an 11:00 appointment for a bone scan at another facility. Although
affiliated with the breast center, it is a few miles away…

“We’ve called them and notified you would be late and they will take
you as soon as you get there”.

Hmmmmmmmm, I said to myself…

Luckily, the feeling had finally come back into the left boob and I
was able to enjoy the experience all over again. I was again, sent
back into the “holding tank” to wait…

10 minutes later, she comes back in and again, says, “follow me”…

My, Hmmmmmm, was now replaced with…”Uh-Oh…

I had to have an Ultrasound, which in itself is no big deal because
I usually DO have to have one with almost every mammogram, but
something seemed “different” this time and my “uh-oh” progressed
to “Oh S**t” when, after the Ultrasound, I was asked to stay
where I was. The tech left and returned with the Radiologist,
who told me he personally wanted to do another Ultrasound…

He does it and tells me to sit up to give me “the news”. He told
me I have an abnormal Lymph node that needs to be dealt with
immediately because it appears to be cancerous. I had the choice of
having an Ultrasound guided needle biopsy, or he would arrange to
have a surgeon go in and “hack off a piece”, (not exactly how he
termed it, I just have a way with words don’t I)

Hold on there Cowboy…I asked if a needle biopsy, (which I have had
before), would be good enough to “start” and if needed because the
results weren’t what we would hope for, a surgeon could THEN go
ahead and hack off a piece. He said “sure” and I wondered why anyone
would choose to go the surgeon route prematurely before anything
really was known. Oh well…

He gave me the sheet that every other woman got in the waiting room,
only mine said, “Abnormal” (I know you’ve all said that about me for
years), and hand-written next to the pre-printed “stuff” was, “Lymph
node, possible cancer” Have a nice day…(Nah, he write the last
part). Needless to say, I was more numb than my left boob on the way
to the Bone Scan place and quite frankly, barely remember the test
because my brain was already in, “Who do I leave my jewelry to”
mode. (Go ahead, laugh, it’s not a crime)…

I got home and saw a few blinking messages on the answering machine
and started to listen to them. The last one was from the Radiologist,
who left a somber sounding message…

“This is Dr. ——, I’m looking for Jamie —–, I need you to call
me as soon as you receive this message, I need to speak to you. I’m
leaving for lunch right now, but it is imperative you call me today”…

Call me immediately, but I’m hungry and probably won’t be here when
you call…

I think you can imagine the look on my face and I swear, I went
weak in the knees. Your mind starts racing, Did he find more
suspicious “things”? Did he want to make sure I get a biopsy
right away because time is of the essence? and about the only
“worse” thing that I didn’t think of was, “Jamie you’re pregnant
even though you have no Uterus”…

I waited until I thought he’d have a full belly and called him back,
held my breath and heard…

“I decided to compare your last 3 Mammograms and Ultrasounds and
the suspicious nodule I saw has been there for three years and
hasn’t changed one bit, I am very confident it is nothing and will
be stamping your report “benign”…

Exhaleeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I thanked him, then thanked the Powers that
be and then, I got a little ticked off. Don’t get me wrong, I am
extremely thankful it is nothing. Lord knows that is true, but my
question is this. Why couldn’t he have left a message that said,
“I have good news for you” instead of the morose sounding death
message he left? And secondly, I have no problem with telling me
about something suspicious, I’m a “I wanna know” type of gal, but
don’t you think the films and records should be really looked at
before you suggest me and my boob go in to see Sweeney Todd?

Oh well, the outcome was worth the stress, the bruised chestbone,
and boobs that are so sore that Flyboy isn’t even allowed to
LOOK at them. And I discovered my boobs can talk, which they
never did before. When I approached them with a bra, they told
me to “get that thing AWAY from us”…

Heck, I’ve learned to live with all the fibroid cysts and lumps
all these years, if it wasn’t for them, I’d probably be an A cup…

And if there ARE any men who hung on to read the whole thing, I’ll
just bet I just took the “sexy” right out of them didn’t I?
Hahahahahaha