polly pocket

First, thank you guys for the good thoughts. Next, a metaphor (or simile, I think). I feel, more often than I'd prefer, like a rusted out Pinto with a bad transmission in the body of Prius. Why not something hotter than a Prius? Because I'm not going that direction. Here's the point. I eat well, weigh what I should according to the all-important BMI calculator, and exercise like a fool. And I should be in remarkably, crazy good health. Which I thought I was until midway through my first pregnancy (with the exception of an overzealous obgyn who sent me, at 21, to get my very first colonoscopy which was grande fun, I was. The butt doctor, in an accent, looks at me strangely and asks, "why are you here?" To which I replied that I was taking oh, I don't know, TWENTY ONE credit hours in one semester while completing a full-time teaching internship on the side. A wee stressed? Yes, yes I was) when I decided - or rather it was revealed to me - that instead of the hot little Lexus I thought I'd been given, I was driving around in a piece of shit, rust bucket. And it took a L O N G time to convince myself otherwise. Therefore, I basically sit on my ass waiting for the sky to fall. Prior to this past week, this practice was relegated to pregnancy. I can handle 8-9 month stretches of paranoia and craziness, but I'm none to happy about it creeping into my normal life. Like it did on Monday.

I was scheduled to go see my OB on Monday for an exam and to have the Mirena yanked (I've not convinced myself to have a third, but if I decide to go for it, I don't want that hanger-on in the way of getting down to business -- plus, it was making me a fucking lunatic). Anyway. Here's the irony, I was nervous about seeing the OB because I dumped her for Bean's pregnancy in favor of the high risk doctors she deemed unnecessary. Good damn thing I didn't listen. Okay, sorry for the digressions. Moving on. She didn't remember me, which was A Very Good Thing. The visit itself was nightmarish, but that's another story for another day. During the breast examination, she dramatically rolls herself away from the table and declares in exasperation, "I can't tell if any of this is normal or not, and there's no way you can either. You're going for an ultrasound!" I, in all my nekkid glory, was speechless. She hands me my check-out sheet which has MASS written in huge letters next to an order for a mammogram and ultrasound.

My best friend's mother has spent the past three years dealing with breast cancer and it's aftermath. I didn't want to go. Quite frankly, I didn't want to be told that my hair was going to fall out, that they'd have to do surgery, and that maybe I wouldn't die. Statistically, I suppose, I had nothing to worry about. Statistics can suck it, though, as far as I'm concerned. Because why not me? I mean, does anyone expect to get it? I think not. So why not me?

I wasn't going to schedule it. And then I thought about the good "not knowing" did me when I was pregnant with the boy, so I decided to call.

Today was the appointment.

The mammogram wasn't bad (if you like having your boobies handled by a handful of women and then smooshed between plates), and the ultrasound wasn't either (minus the strain in my neck from trying to decipher all the beeping and measuring going on overhead). To my immense relief, the office has an in-house tech to read the results immediately. Turns out I just have lumpy, bumpy pockets of fluid which are completely NORMAL. What? Me? Normal? Well, I'll be damned. I think I'll drink to that.

Thanks again for all your support; last night was not fun.