If I had been truly worried about breast cancer I would have raised all holy hell to get an earlier appointment, but my hunch (despite significant symptoms and family history) was that it would simply be too absurd to have yet another diagnosis.
This belief carried me across town and into an examination room where a very kind woman poked and prodded at the suspect tissue.
I was expecting her to take a look and send me home. Instead, she pulled out a pen and drew a big red circle on my body, telling me that a mammogram would be “offered.” Immediately.
We had a short and concise discussion about the radiation risks, during which she informed me that there is no funding for MRI testing for breast cancer screening in this NHS trust no matter what my geneticist recommends.
Opting out of testing altogether was not on offer.
I walked out to the lobby in a haze of confusion – before that moment I had been intermittently dismayed, concerned, and angry, but I had not experienced fear.
There was no time to indulge in terror because I was called to the xray suite almost immediately.
Having a stranger wrangle your breasts into position to be squeezed by a machine is certainly not the most pleasant experience but halfway through I said in amazement This is easy! I have way worse tests all the time!
The technician replied You are the first person who has ever said that.
Then she told me that I needed an ultrasound.
Here is a significant difference between the states and the UK – each of these component tests back home would be scheduled with days or even weeks between, and cost an enormous amount of money.
This morning I trundled from room to room with the big red circle defining danger as the experts sorted it out – for free.
Reclining half naked waiting for the sonogram to commence I told the story of how, freshly diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I was totally psyched to hear that my first ever ultrasound proved I could not have needle aspiration. Why? Because I had a paranoid fear of needles.
I was eleven years old and had no relative clue that surgery was in fact much more painful and scary. Let alone that the diagnosis they were developing included the word terminal..
Life, death, whatever – I was just a little kid, even if I didn’t know it at the time.
Many people have fond recollections related to ultrasound, because that is often their first glimpse of a beloved baby. Me? It is all about tracking diseased ovaries, failing kidneys, scar tissue strangling organs, decay, rot. Even the tests performed during my confinements (and I use the term deliberately since both pregnancies were conducted almost entirely on medically ordered bedrest) were mostly about answering questions like – is the spine growing inside or outside?
This morning, one arm behind my head, I watched the screen as the technician dragged the magic wand back and forth to evaluate irregularity and viscosity.
We stared silently and shared the knowledge – all clear.
It is official. I do not have breast cancer – or rather, I do not have breast cancer today.