Day 17: Breathe, Seek, Play....Be Still

Today was a monumental day.....one that often comes around with dread, and year after year....put off, well at least for me, until this year.  Today was my annual "female" visit to the OB/GYN, but I use the term "annual"  when in fact it has been many years since I've gone to get my pipes checked.  Why? Well, stupidity mostly....my reasoning that is.  Whenever I was supposed to go, there was a vacation to Disney, Christmas vacation to VA, trips to Williamsburg, Birthday parties...and summers at the beach...My reasoning for not going?  I was afraid.  What if I got bad news?  I didn't want to be sad or have a trip cancelled if more tests needed to be run.  Crazy, yes...but that is how my mind works...I would rather go and enjoy my time not knowing if something bad was happening inside me...not knowing means it's not happening.  My doctor today did give me a hard time for waiting so long.  He said every year there is a summer or a trip...and I nodded in agreement and said I would be better about coming back.  That was until the mammogram...the tata smoosher...yes, this was my first.  I had heard horror stories about how they flatten and press them down with unbearable pressure (for you fellas still reading and have some how managed not to look away, this is equivalent to the "graze" that brings you to your knees curled up in the fetal position).  Well, in I went.  The mammography tech instructed me to go into a changing area...wipe off any deodorant and lotion and place the robe on with open part to the front.  As I exited the room I saw her quickly size me up..and she looked at the plate she had placed on the machine and realized she needed a bigger size.  I joked that "objects in my bra appear larger than they are"  She brings me over after changing the plates and then places some stickers on my areola areas so the radiologist will know, she ask if I have any moles as they would require a sticker too.  Then I get instructed to go to the machine and turn in such a way that thank goodness I could not observe what was happening.  Relax, drop your arm, bend your knee she says to me.  Then the pressure begins...and then more, and finally another before she says "there, don't move".  REALLY? Where would I go?  My boob is in a vice grip, I cannot even breathe, I imagine if I move that my breast will become stretchy like silly putty and I'll be pulled back to the machine by the elastic force!  Click and we are done.  Repeat the other side and I thought...wow, this wasn't so bad. And then she said, oh we are not done, we need a side view.  How in the world one can manage to hug the machine in a contortionist way, and get a good side view shot is beyond me.  You would think that with all the vast advances we've made in technology there is a man, or woman, who can invent something that would be able to capture the image without the smashdown.  I am sure the captured image of my face would have been priceless at this point.  And again, the pressure, increasing....relax...and hold it, don't move...I CAN'T BREATHE. Seriously, how do women repeatedly go back year after year to have this done? I am thankful that I could not see just how flat they could get my girls.  It isn't as bad it is sounds...but of all the things my "girls" can do...this is not one that I've ever heard many talk about openly (it's just one of those things that is understood). It's amazing what goes through your head when you are physically forced to "be still".   When it's all over and I go back into the dressing room...the tech tells me to be sure to take the stickers off carefully.  I laugh as I look for the first time in the mirror and I see the stickers with what looks like a silver metallic dot in the center...and for a moment it is as if I have pasties with piercings!  I get a great laugh out of this and for just a moment I thought about leaving them on as a joke for later!  I am shuffled from there to blood work and the pee in the cup part.  I told the tech there that if she told me I was pregnant she better get someone to catch me when I came out of the bathroom.  She laughed, but I was a tad worried when I came out of the bathroom and didn't see her in her chair!  I said I felt like I was a car on an assembly line.  Go here, do this, wait here, fill this out...The doctor told me that I was cleared for my 43,000 mile check up and not to wait so long before I come back to have my tires rotated. I about fell out of the chair laughing and told him I had previously posted on facebook about feeling like I was a car in an assembly line (my mother said you can let them check your oil but don't let them rotate your tires).  He laughed and said he wasn't taking any chances and ran a full panel on me just in case I didn't come back.  He told me he'd have my results in a few days and if nothing showed up on my xrays that I'd get those results in a few weeks.  Why do I share all of this?  Because it is important and no one should put off getting checked.  I have an Aunt and dear neighbor who are battling breast cancer...I know countless friends of friends and friends of our family that have battled breast cancer.  Some battled and were survivors, others lost their battle.  And the test I was avoiding in taking is the only way (unless you are find one in a self exam) to detect breast cancer.  Early detection is so important, and I know there are so many who are like me and have put the exam off for one reason or another.  The save the tatas movement needs to catch on...the exam need not be this fearsome test that I had thought it was...embrace the pierced pasties and laughter of hugging the metal smooshing machine that gets to second base not once, not twice but four times...and didn't even have to buy me dinner first!  Hahaha.  Seriously though, we need to focus on our health...eating better, exercise and see the doctor on a regular basis. And we need to keep each other in check about these appointments.  We owe it to those that have fought the fight and their family members they left behind who would give anything for them to be here.  I thought a lot about them in the moment I was told to "hold it, don't move"....and I couldn't breathe....How this test has changed lives, how it has impacted every fiber of their being, and the waiting, more testing, and treatments that followed.  I told the doctor this was what got me to come in this year to have my testing done....that the fear of being better off not knowing had been squashed...because the fear of knowing that if something was wrong that I could have prevented it or perhaps spared my family and loved ones from enduring the heartache without given the chance to fight and survive was greater.  So, if you have put off having your yearly visit....make your appointment and go.  We have to focus on our health, the appointments are simple, and knowing about our health and tests allow us to enjoy life and be grateful and thankful....moments to just be still.  The waiting part  will not be easy over the next couple of days and once I get my "all clear" reports....then I think I can "breathe" easier again...and by then I think my knockers will have reinflated and be back to normal again!

Save the Hooters!