So, in the last post, there, someone left a comment that said something along the lines of “GEEZ, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOUR ULTRASOUND?” And I felt all warm and fuzzy, because I realized that you truly care. Or at least that I’ve reached my goal of being so completely inappropriate and shameless that now when I don’t regularly update you on my boobs, you start to worry.
(My breasteses; let me show you them.)
I actually forgot to write about it because the whole thing was so anti-climactic, and also because I have been busy, you know, with things other than my mammaries. I have been, um, curing world hunger! And educating the downtrodden! And looking at faucets! And buying stuff at Amazon!
(Totally true, you know. I shall begin the hunger cure with homemade pizza night—the only night on which my children clear their plates each and every time—and the rest is highly important and truthful, as well. Especially the part about the faucets. Because Otto bought some gorgeous faucets on clearance yesterday during the plumbing debacle, and when he told me how much they cost I swallowed my tongue. Then I started researching faucets online and swallowed my teeth. I have discovered why poverty is so rampant in our world, and the reason is OVERPRICED BATH FIXTURES.)
Anyway.
So Monday, I went in for my breast ultrasound. By the time it rolled around, I was, in truth, a little nervous. All this fuss gets to a person after a while, you know. So I drove over to the hospital feeling a bit of trepidation, but keeping it together, and mentally composing “to be opened on your 18th birthday” letters to the children to be left for them before my untimely demise.
[“Dear Chickadee, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to see you exact your wrath on the world once hormones came into play. I hope no one was hurt. Just know that I always loved you very much, and no, I don’t know where your socks are.” “Dear Monkey, I hope that now that you’re a young man, you fart less often. Dude, you were the light of my life but MAN, enough is enough. Yours is a tush only a mother could love.”]
This hospital has a wing specifically for “women’s imaging” (I love that… like maybe people can just run in during the day and twirl at the front desk and say “Does this make my butt look big?” and get an honest assessment before running off to that power meeting), so I’ve been to the same desk for my mammogram and MRI, before this.
“Good morning, how are you today?” chirped the happy desk attendant as I handed her my paperwork.
“I’m fine, thanks, though I’m really hoping the third time is the charm and this will be my last visit here for a while!” She gave me a look. I know that look. It’s the “too much information, just say ‘fine’ and move on” look.
Unfortunately, I have many strengths, but brevity isn’t one of them.
I’d barely seated myself in the waiting area when a tech came to get me. She took me back to the ultrasound room and directed me to go change into a gown, and when I came back out she had me lie down on the table and got right to business.
That is to say, she squirted about a quart of goo onto my left boob and commenced grinding it into my ribcage with the ultrasound wand, while I babbled incessantly because that is what I do when I’m nervous and some stranger is trying to forcibly inject my nipple into my lung.
She took a few measurements. I looked at the screen and remarked, “Wow, that’s just what my first baby looked like!” She gave a little uncomfortable chuckle, unsure whether or not I was kidding. (I was.) She took some more pictures, then pulled out a towel and draped it over the gooey breast and informed me she needed to go get the radiologist.
Hey, lucky for me, I got the same doc as the one I talked to after my mammogram. (Knowing this town? I strongly suspect he’s the ONLY radiologist. But whatever.) This doc is nice and cheerful and not bad looking, and as an added bonus he has a cute accent. (I think he’s Australian. Or New Zealand…ish?) He came in and shook my hand (not like THAT was awkward or anything, with me lying on the table with a handtowel draped over my exposed breast) and told me he was going to have a look, but that he thought probably everything was fine.
Then he took over the probe and had his turn at making my breast meet my spleen, and took some measurements and some pictures and declared me perfectly healthy.
“Do you know why your doctor ordered the MRI?” he asked me. (Except, the accent, you know. “D’ya now why yer doktah ooordered th’MRI?”)
“Because… she’s a moron?” I guessed. Whoops. Had I just said that out loud? “Um, I mean, she wanted a better look at those calcifications on the other side.”
He nodded, then gave me a brief lecture on whether or not mammography is useful with younger, denser breast tissue (no) and how MRIs are very good at seeing things but not in specific and wrapped up by saying that the ultrasound revealed nothing more sinister than fibrocystic changes (and lumpy boobs rarely kill).
I was starting to sort of like him (or, at least, to be hypnotized by his accent), but then he said I needed to have a repeat MRI in 6 months.
“What? WHY?” He’d JUST finished telling me how the MRI I’d had was unnecessary and everything was fine.
“Well,” he sighed. “Here’s the thing. We never would’ve known about this stuff if you hadn’t had the MRI. And everything looks fine. But now that we know about it, we should do a repeat just to make sure nothing changes.”
“So, if I’d never had the MRI, there’d be nothing to worry about?” He squirmed a little.
“Yeah, basically. I feel comfortable saying you’re fine, but given that we now have this data, I think we need to do a repeat JUST to confirm that there aren’t any changes.”
Hmph. Accent or no, anyone who looks me in the eye and declares me fit and healthy but needing a repeat ride in the tunnel of dangling dignity and cacophony is no friend of mine. I accepted the appointment card they gave me but, I dunno, six months is a long time… I might lose it. Stranger things have happened.
Besides, upon further reflection, I really think I need to spend all of my available time on finishing up those letters for the kids.
The ride in the tunnel of dangling dignity and cacophony sounds a lot like my daily commute with two kids. Not so much dangling going on, though.
And I love your idea for the women’s imaging office!! Somebody definitely needs to make one of those. You could have a desk that you would go to if you really did want to know if those jeans make your butt look big and a desk you could go to if you wanted someone to pump your ego a little bit. Brilliant. `Cause husbands are useless at that sort of thing.
There are phrases in this post that are… fabulous. “tunnel of dangling dignity and cacophony” (oooooh nifty words AND alliteration) AND a cute dr with an accent. Don’t unfriend him – he had the decency to squirm and stuff while my (uncute, unaccented) drs just shout the bad news over their shoulders as they whisk out the door. (it’s true that, one actually said “so, there are precancerous architectural anomalies I have another appointment call with questions” SLAM)
Hey, your google ads with this post are all about breast mammography and stuff. Then there’s one for Jado luxury faucets.
What an eclectic little entry you’ve got.
From now on I will view the google ads first and try to figure how on earth you wove THOSE things together into one story.
I’m so glad all is well! A like All Adither’s idea about the Google ads, but right now they’re for asthma medication, and I’m not sure how that fits in…
Also glad all is well! You’ve convinced me I made the right decision in putting off my first mammogram until I’m at least forty. I know I’m supposed to get a baseline, but honest to god, I have flat-as-a-board, training-bra-sized titties. If a lump shows up, it’s got nowhere to hide.
(and lumpy books rarely kill).
Mir, honey, lumpy books are incredibly dangerous. A whack in the head with a lumpy book can kill a person. A whack in the head with a lumpy boob, different story.
Normally I’m not one to nitpick over typos (they’re uncommon in your case, anyway), but I just have to laugh at the line, “and lumpy books rarely kill.” So true.
But, uh, glad for you that lumpy boobs rarely kill as well. Just in case, however, keep up the good work on those letters. I may steal a line or two if ever I feel I’m dying.
Doh! Leanne beat me by two minutes!
I’ve decided to consider the nitpicking at a single typo testament to my usually STELLAR spelling, rather than any indication of anal-retentive tendencies on the part of my readers, by the way. ;)
I am so glad you got a (sort of) clean bill of health. Hooray!
Drat missed the typo – but had this vision of a water soaked Harry Potter book coming up and hitting people … possibly OriginalDoctorWhoDoesn’tCall … anyway, just wanted to share – and glad that all is seemingly okay. For now. And happy seven months. Has anyone said yet that Otto is a complete keeper?
Dangling indignity, more like.
I think all boob techs come from the Torquemada School of Terminal Imagining and get brownie points for eliciting screams of pain from their victims and ten points if they bring you to the point of unconsciousness by squished boob and held breath just to get the right angle.
Men designed these machines, I am convinced.
Yeah, I think this doctor is a moron too.
That reminds me of the time I took my son to the dentist and was told he had no cavities, that everything looked wonderful and basically it was a pleasure to look in his mouth. Then, as we’re getting ready to leave, the dentist says my son has the “slightest of overbites” and would I want to hear about their payment plan for braces?
I’m beginning to think people in the medical field work on commission!
But I’m happy to hear your breasteses are just fine and dandy and able to keep you with your family for years and years to come! :O)
OK, here’s my theory. I believe you are absolutely fine. I think these things keep happening to you because the medical “professionals” read your blog, are jealous, and just want to read about themselves and be famous. I’m sorry for all the stress…especially at this time of year when you don’t have enough stress to begin with. Forget the letters, just enjoy your kids, and your first Christmas married to Otto.
Maybe next time you go in, they’ll up the accent ante. The next guy’s name will be Francois and he will have ze French accent and also he will have ze beret.
The time after that, his name will be Marco and he will ride around the office on a Vespa and yell ‘Ciao!’ every couple minutes.
The United Nations of Boob Doctors.
Geez, if you want a cute Australian to grease up your bazooms there are easier ways to go about it.
Granted, most of them involve going to Australia…
I’m glad you’re okay!
Huh? I am unsure. Are you going to die or are you fine? I am hoping for fine. Just so you know.
Hmmm. Faucets are kind of like breasts, aren’t they?
Sounds like he could have been from South Africa. I’ve heard people from New Zealand referred to as Kiwis, but perhaps that’s offensive? Anyone? (mmm…kiwi…)
You’re in my prayers, Mir.
Hugs.
Just for fun, I think you should change the color of the text in this line “My breasteses; let me show you them” to make them appear to be a link. Then you can make an appropriately chastising comment to follow (or actually link it to Shame on You! message.
Ultrasounds of the ovaries can be equally entertaining. Glad your report was good, even if is was a long time coming.
Because I’m easily convinced, especially living vicariously through your words written with an Aussie-ish accent, I’ll wait until I’m 40 to get my boobages squish-i-fied in the vice of doom. I’m all about putting that kind of party off as long as possible!
Make sure you don’t lose that appointment card *wink wink*
I just hate the idea of going and getting my breast flattened like a pancake! However, the other option is not great either, 6 feet under. Two of my friends have terminal breast cancer, I am going, and I am not waiting for 40 to do it!
I live in Australia and am orginaly from New Zealand, so it’d be New Zealander or Kiwi (google it, they’re very weird birds)
Dear Mir,
Thanks for the update—yes, I did ask for it because I care. Also because I had breast cancer last year and am consequently sort of obsessed with the topic. How much testing to pursue is a difficult decision. The doctor’s recommended middle course of not worrying about it but getting another MRI in 6 months just to be sure nothing’s growing in there sounds reasonable to me. (After that, if you’re under 50 and don’t have any risk factors for breast cancer, you could consider, and discuss with your doctors, whether to discontinue all breast imaging until age 50.) Disregarding the current recommendation to get the follow-up MRI is probably not all that unreasonable a course either, but you do need to think about it and whether it will nag at you. I got mammograms every year or so from age 39 until the year before my cancer was found, when I kept putting the mammogram off until 2 years had gone by. My cancer was small, but I couldn’t help wondering of course whether it might have been visible and even smaller on the mammogram I skipped the year before.
Glad that all is well! I wondered… But ya know, no news is good news? Usually?
Oh my gosh! I think I shot grilled cheese sandwhich out my nose at the “squirt a quart of goo and grind it into my ribcage”!!! Ain’t that the truth. You crack me up, thanks for adding so much humor to my life. Glad everything is OK.
Ok,sorry if someone has already suggested this, but how about another ULTRASOUND in 6 months – it seems like it was a much nicer experience. And probably cheaper!
An MRI every 6 months puts about $4000 in the medical industry’s pockets. THAT’s why they want you to have another one… ARGH.
(Who’s cynical? :D )