What a lovely evening. I should be out walking in 't, but instead I am rocking away in front of a raging fireplace. I just displaced the dog that was sleeping on my lap for full access to the laptop; the kids are watching Curious George downstairs and Merry and her friend are upstairs, doing. . .homework? Maybe. Or watching something on her computer. A Costco lasagna cooks away in the oven, and I can fool myself in feeling quite content with my housekeeping skills, even though all I did was tent the foil and slide that sucker in.
But it's been a full day. Every day is a full day, since Martin works 12-hour days, but this one was particularly, since I had to high-tail it up to the next city this morning to get my breast checked. This is something I do a lot--get that breast checked. It's lumpy as the day is long. During my first visit to this particular doctor, she laughed dismissively when I told her I had fybrocystic breasts: "Who told you that?" she guffawed, but then as the exam proceeded, she lowered her voice and said, "Oh, but you really do. You really do. Wow. Pret-ty lumpy!" This time she said, "O, I remember. I wrote all over the chart: really lumpy. Really lumpy." This is not a descriptor any woman ever hopes to win.
It's been a source of anxiety since my early 20's--not that fybrocystic breasts are bad in themselves, but it does make self-exams pretty volatile, especially since you're trained to do self-exams and report that minute you find anything. So it used to be that every time I felt a lump I'd obsess and go crazy until I got yet another ultrasound or mammogram or exam. This has been going on for the last 15 + years, and I've become a bit more laid-back. But this year my New Year's resolution was to be a real adult (that is, be brave about my life), so I made my appointment for yet another lump that showed up and found the office and read Good Housekeeping and Web MD and Better Homes and watched the happy pregnant women come and go and put on my hospital gown and found out I've got some kind of "mass" in my lumpy bowl 'o oatmeal booby.
(My favorite mammogram story: When the technician wedged me between the two steel plates, flattened me like a pancake and said seriously, "Okay now, don't move." I found that hilarious. As if.)
So off I go in two weeks for another mammogram and ultrasound. Why is that Martin never seems to have to visit the doctor? Being a woman means you've got to go, get things squared away, and then go back. You think you've ridden one thing and then another crashes over you. It's a wavy, wavy sea, being a woman is.
I know you sistas out there know what I'm talking about. There is an amazing sort of sisterhood at the gynecologist's office, even though the receptionists today seemed a little short-fused. I've been thinking lately about the great power for good people who work at hospitals and doctor's office have. I've visited friends at a couple psych wards last year, visited my brother at the intensive care unit after his congestive heart failure, (plus routine visits with the kids. . .) I go into those places with uncertainties and misgivings and anxiety, and the professionals I meet there are calm, friendly, jovial even. It is a great thing to encounter that kind of compassionate, controlled peace when you are at your wit's end or when someone you love is in danger or recovering from something horrible. I met a nic-u nurse the other day and I felt like shaking her hand: thanks for being so calm and kind in the face of uncertainty. What good you must do very distraught patients. I sometimes wonder how health-care professionals can keep up that brisk kindness. I guess it is their profession, but that doesn't mean it's not a calling or hard work.
Even so, I'd like to see the inside of a hospital or clinic very seldom in 2015.
Oh, I've got to get the kids in order to eat their delicious Costco lasagna over which I slaved for so long.
K out.
But it's been a full day. Every day is a full day, since Martin works 12-hour days, but this one was particularly, since I had to high-tail it up to the next city this morning to get my breast checked. This is something I do a lot--get that breast checked. It's lumpy as the day is long. During my first visit to this particular doctor, she laughed dismissively when I told her I had fybrocystic breasts: "Who told you that?" she guffawed, but then as the exam proceeded, she lowered her voice and said, "Oh, but you really do. You really do. Wow. Pret-ty lumpy!" This time she said, "O, I remember. I wrote all over the chart: really lumpy. Really lumpy." This is not a descriptor any woman ever hopes to win.
It's been a source of anxiety since my early 20's--not that fybrocystic breasts are bad in themselves, but it does make self-exams pretty volatile, especially since you're trained to do self-exams and report that minute you find anything. So it used to be that every time I felt a lump I'd obsess and go crazy until I got yet another ultrasound or mammogram or exam. This has been going on for the last 15 + years, and I've become a bit more laid-back. But this year my New Year's resolution was to be a real adult (that is, be brave about my life), so I made my appointment for yet another lump that showed up and found the office and read Good Housekeeping and Web MD and Better Homes and watched the happy pregnant women come and go and put on my hospital gown and found out I've got some kind of "mass" in my lumpy bowl 'o oatmeal booby.
(My favorite mammogram story: When the technician wedged me between the two steel plates, flattened me like a pancake and said seriously, "Okay now, don't move." I found that hilarious. As if.)
So off I go in two weeks for another mammogram and ultrasound. Why is that Martin never seems to have to visit the doctor? Being a woman means you've got to go, get things squared away, and then go back. You think you've ridden one thing and then another crashes over you. It's a wavy, wavy sea, being a woman is.
I know you sistas out there know what I'm talking about. There is an amazing sort of sisterhood at the gynecologist's office, even though the receptionists today seemed a little short-fused. I've been thinking lately about the great power for good people who work at hospitals and doctor's office have. I've visited friends at a couple psych wards last year, visited my brother at the intensive care unit after his congestive heart failure, (plus routine visits with the kids. . .) I go into those places with uncertainties and misgivings and anxiety, and the professionals I meet there are calm, friendly, jovial even. It is a great thing to encounter that kind of compassionate, controlled peace when you are at your wit's end or when someone you love is in danger or recovering from something horrible. I met a nic-u nurse the other day and I felt like shaking her hand: thanks for being so calm and kind in the face of uncertainty. What good you must do very distraught patients. I sometimes wonder how health-care professionals can keep up that brisk kindness. I guess it is their profession, but that doesn't mean it's not a calling or hard work.
Even so, I'd like to see the inside of a hospital or clinic very seldom in 2015.
Oh, I've got to get the kids in order to eat their delicious Costco lasagna over which I slaved for so long.
K out.
Comments
XOXO T
Oh, and YOU are one of those calm, wonderful health-care professionals. You rock. I remember when I told you we were leaving town, watching your face in some astonishment. Professional calm in the face of disaster. It's a gift :)!