Not cancer
Not that I am a prolific poster at the best of times, but if anyone has noticed that I have been somewhat terse the past couple of weeks, that's because I've spent most of that time trying to think of something to say beyond paraphrasing Arthur Dent: "So this is it. I'm going to die."
The day after my annual mammogram, I got a call from the radiologist asking me to come in for a follow-up "to just doublecheck a few things."
This turned into a full morning of sonagrams, ultrasounds, and an MRI, plus a family history workup to make sure my risk assessment level was high enough to get insurance to pay for all of the above. (Plenty high enough. Yay?)
After being "injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected"*. I was cleared -- only to get a message to call my doctor back when I got to work. She had been reviewing the pictures, and decided that she wanted a biopsy after all.
Someday -- maybe in a few months -- I'll be able to tell the whole story about biopsies. The procedures they used was a fascinating mixture of dazzling high tech and jury-rigged make-do, and aspects of it were genuinely funny. (There is something about walking into a room crammed with computer monitors and chrome devices, dominated by a big table with a steplader and a hole cut in the middle...)
But despite being as fully informed on the various aspects of breast diseases as thirty years of preparation and an MLIS degree could make me, with full intellectual knowledge that the odds were eighty percent in favor of the results being benign, and even in the worst possible case looking at a tylectomy with full recoveyr, I could not shut up the little voice chanting "You're going to die you're going to die you're going to die you're going to die...."
Until late this afternoon. When I was informed by the doctor (in the most lugubrious accents possible; seriously, her phone messages are terrifying) for now, I'm back in the clear. The clinic is still trying to talk me into taking that *$%#@ genetic test, and suggest strongly that I come back every six months.
I guess that little voice is going to get plenty of exercise. (Stupid little voice. Go bother Antonin Scalia for a while.)
Meanwhile, spouse took us out for sushi tonight, and told me quite sternly to drink at least two glasses of wine before bedtime.
*That's not at all fair, really. The nurses and technicians were very warm, caring, informative,and even solicitous; but despite their best efforts, nobody could call it a fun experience.
The day after my annual mammogram, I got a call from the radiologist asking me to come in for a follow-up "to just doublecheck a few things."
This turned into a full morning of sonagrams, ultrasounds, and an MRI, plus a family history workup to make sure my risk assessment level was high enough to get insurance to pay for all of the above. (Plenty high enough. Yay?)
After being "injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected"*. I was cleared -- only to get a message to call my doctor back when I got to work. She had been reviewing the pictures, and decided that she wanted a biopsy after all.
Someday -- maybe in a few months -- I'll be able to tell the whole story about biopsies. The procedures they used was a fascinating mixture of dazzling high tech and jury-rigged make-do, and aspects of it were genuinely funny. (There is something about walking into a room crammed with computer monitors and chrome devices, dominated by a big table with a steplader and a hole cut in the middle...)
But despite being as fully informed on the various aspects of breast diseases as thirty years of preparation and an MLIS degree could make me, with full intellectual knowledge that the odds were eighty percent in favor of the results being benign, and even in the worst possible case looking at a tylectomy with full recoveyr, I could not shut up the little voice chanting "You're going to die you're going to die you're going to die you're going to die...."
Until late this afternoon. When I was informed by the doctor (in the most lugubrious accents possible; seriously, her phone messages are terrifying) for now, I'm back in the clear. The clinic is still trying to talk me into taking that *$%#@ genetic test, and suggest strongly that I come back every six months.
I guess that little voice is going to get plenty of exercise. (Stupid little voice. Go bother Antonin Scalia for a while.)
Meanwhile, spouse took us out for sushi tonight, and told me quite sternly to drink at least two glasses of wine before bedtime.
*That's not at all fair, really. The nurses and technicians were very warm, caring, informative,and even solicitous; but despite their best efforts, nobody could call it a fun experience.