10.05.08 chic
For the most part I ignore my own dreary medical drama. There isn't enough time in life to accommodate all the good stuff: adventure, travel, friends, love, lunacy.
This does not mean that I am exempt from fear and grief. I just save it up until the crisis has passed.
Riding the bus back to the city centre after my appointment, I could feel my heart racing, see my hands shaking.
Since I didn't have my bicycle I could not literally ride away on a wave of anxiety, so I did the next best thing - talked to a friend who mocked me into a reasonably calm state.
Then I went searching for gifts for new babies, sweet boys, sick relatives.
At the toy store I queued up clutching a Playmobil figure without paying too much attention to my surroundings.
Apparently I had accidentally dropped in on a fashion conversation because the woman at the counter gestured and said Now this lady is chic.
I stared about in amazement since you would never normally see such a creature in this town but she was pointing at me.
Huh? What? I'm no lady (fill in your own vaudeville joke here) and my tattered sartorial state does not equate with 'chic' even on a good day.
I was not having a good day.
Though I have a special leftover childhood reserve of anxiety over what to wear to visit the doctor, this has in the last few years mainly translated to concepts like wear clean clothes that cover the tattoo.
And that was the extent of my effort to prepare for the cursed cancer tests. Head to toe description: tangled unkempt hair, dark sunglasses, black wool scarf, demented and very wrong green plaid blazer over black jumper, black skirt, threadbare and slightly torn black tights, ugly black orthopedic shoes. Covering a body ravaged by disease with a figure not even remotely popular in this century or my lifetime.
The only possible explanation for why this reads as stylish is the way I hold myself, and I will admit that I am bold and dismissive. I don't know or care what anyone thinks of the way I look even if they shout it in my face - whether a criticism or compliment, I am immune. The only reason I noticed this particular exchange? I was in a toy store in Cambridge England.
These things do not happen here.
10.03.08 sorted
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.
10.02.08 pragmatic
Last night I had dinner with two fellow cancer kids and one person who has a chronic life-threatening illness.
The relief I feel in these situations is enormous - I never censor my conversation, but it can be tiresome to deal with the emotional reactions of healthy people when the macabre and hilarious anecdotes slip out.
Tomorrow is the big appointment with the Breast Clinic and I am reacting in a predictable way: bickering with a friend over whether or not I need an escort. I say no but the consensus amongst those who know me in real life is that I may well bolt rather than attend.
Whatever!
On a related topic, I've been obsessively watching the economic news and have developed an urgent desire to move to Ireland or Luxembourg or one of the countries making sensible efforts to guarantee financial institutions.
This follows my instinct over the last few years to cancel all of my credit cards, pay off the student loans, close my bank accounts, and take up residence in a country with socialized medicine.
I spend every cent I earn immediately, or give it away.
I have no assets, no pension, I own precisely nothing of value - for purely pragmatic reasons.
I remember the brutal experience of selling off the family homestead to pay for grandpa to enter a nursing home. I remember my great-grandma living in a shoddy trailer at age one hundred because anything nicer would mean losing her government aid, after a lifetime of hard work and decency.
I know exactly what my childhood illness cost, even with insurance, and I was mortified to watch my parents lose everything as they worked double and triple time to pay my medical bills.
If I get sick again (and the news might arrive as early as 10am tomorrow) I would rather be proactively indigent than watch my family spiral into bankruptcy caring for me as I die.
Eminently sensible, yes, but also tremendously frightening. What a waste of resources - I would be a diligent earner and saver if only I felt safe.
10.01.08 reading
You are all reading this, right?
America's Smartest Girl, Nicole J. Georges, channels her powers for good as she drums up answers to the world's most complicated questions.
