Today's diagnostic mammogram, scheduled one week after my original mammogram, does not concern me. Last week my internist called to say that a cluster of calcifications had been noticed on my left breast.
Today is a sunny, blue-skied day that starts out better than most. A radio show host asks to interview me tomorrow about my memoir The Moon To Play With - A Daughter's Journey…. The short notice pulls on my thoughts and I spend that evening and the next morning preparing them.
My mammogram appointment is set for late afternoon. Wanting more practice time for the interview, I call Zwanger Pesiri to ask if I can switch the appointment to an earlier time.
Escorted to the mammogram section of the building, I am told to don a crimson gown, not a white one, like I’ve done every other time I’ve been there. This minor difference causes an involuntarily hyperventilation and heart flutter. I feel segregated and conspicuous. No one else is wearing a crimson gown.
The cramped waiting room has a border of cranberry chairs that line the perimeter. The technician signals me to follow her, and speaks as she works. She checks carefully to make sure that each of the three 'pictures' she has taken are clear. Which is a good thing, because if she wanted to squeeze my breast into that machine another three times, I might have walked out with an exasperated expletive spoken audibly. In which case I would not have been called into the radiologist's tiny, dark office at the end of a narrow hallway.
The young radiologist, flanked by angles of my breast and a computer screen, is huddled in the far corner of the room. She extends a limp hand in the direction of a desk chair and introduces herself.
"You have calcifications on your left breast. It may or may not be a malignancy, which is why I want you to go for a biopsy. Sooner is better."
I believe I behave sanely. I ask where to go for the biopsy, and she hands me a card with the biopsy coordinator's name listed on the bottom right corner. Then I leave.
Without asking how long the biopsy will take, if I can drive myself to and from the appointment, or when I can expect to receive the results. I simply leave, as though leaving could erase what took place.
I walk out the front door into the sunlight without the doctor's report or the films. I count to consciously slow the timing of my breaths.
This would ordinarily be a time I’d call my mom, but she died five years earlier from Pancreatic Cancer. Emotion floods my chest but I am determined to remain rational. My mom was the softie who would have been feeling my feelings so personally that I could almost get away with not feeling them myself. Physical distress, not words, open a locked compartment. That is the place where I stow how desperately I miss my mom.
I dial Lance’s cell. He is more than my significant other. He is my rudder, my strength, my forever partner.
"I didn't mention that I was going for a follow-up mammogram today because it never occurred to me that they would say anything other than, you're fine. They want to do a biopsy."
"Okay,” he responds calmly. “Did they say anything else?"
"She said there was a 70/30 percent chance it wasn't cancer, but that 30 percent wasn't a small enough number not to do further checking."
The unruffled tone of his voice, the normalcy in his questioning, and knowing that he’s there, settle me.
I enter my home through the garage door. The brown table with the mirror above it reflects my ashen complexion. I eat the remnants of yesterday’s nicoise salad in my kitchen, on my maternal grandmother’s floral china, under a bronze chandelier, where I feel safe.
It takes the biopsy coordinator's colleague six minutes to locate her.
"Hello?"
"Hi. I just left the Merrick office, and was told to call and schedule a biopsy appointment."
"Ahuh. Lynbrook or Plainview?"
"I don't know. Umm, Lynbrook."
I return to Zwanger to pick up the films and doctor report I had forgotten earlier. I find out: I can drive myself to and from the procedure, it’s a needle biopsy with a local anesthetic, I get the results in three to five days, and I am walking around with a lump in my throat, holding back tears.
I cancel the radio interview hours before it is to air. Sending an apologetic email to my contact, I explain that a personal problem has arisen and I will be unable to speak this evening. Would she please consider a time to reschedule? I doubt she will ever contact me again, but I am unable to pretend that what just happened, did not.
The biopsy takes place on Monday, June 15th. With the forewarned knowledge that positive thinking is not enough, I sit in the uncertainty, in the moment, and try to keep my brain from racing to places I cannot fathom.
But my mind tugs nevertheless. Low-flying thoughts require navigation so as not to crash into the mountainside or the sea. I resist the call to peek into darkness.
Life has a way of shaking us up. Mine has been so full recently. My kids are doing well, experiencing the normal growing pains of young adults. My relationship with Lance is the healthiest of my adult life. And I've never felt this proud, fulfilled, or peaceful."
On a dime, life can change. How can that be?
I think about my handsome, dark-haired sons and my youngest child and only daughter with mahogany curls that tap her waist. They remain blissfully unaware of the fate that may befall me. This is intentional. I choose to protect them, as I choose to protect myself. The pain I cause them would radiate like a raging fever, and that heat, circled back, would sear my flesh.
I imagine myself in the operating room appearing calm. Silently I spout affirmations: You are fine, Your breast is healthy, You can handle this.
Like a Woodstock love-in or a positive-thinking seminar, I want to believe. But a river of negativity runs deep and she is powerful. Unwilling to be silenced, she shoots like a geyser: mighty, anonymous, playing God.
Every once in a while my heart pounds so forcefully that I can feel my pulse beating in my throat.
The experience of a breast biopsy is far worse than I could ever have imagined. Were it not for the plain and pleasant technician from Scandinavia, and the tall, attractive radiologist with layers of bouncing red curls, I could have, for the first time in my life, had a panic attack. The doctor does her best to talk me through the claustrophobic procedure, asking "Are you okay?" more times than I bother to answer. I close my eyes and turn my head from the noisy machine and her practiced verbiage.
"I'm nervous," I whisper, more to myself than to either of them.
"That's normal," the radiologist responds, clearly in her element.
The technician stuffs an over-sized pillow in the cramped space between my back and the chair, making unintended movement a remote possibility. She turns my head and neck to the right at an unnatural angle, and proceeds - without warning - to smash my left breast between the base of the machine and a clear piece of immovable plastic lodged just above it with a small rectangular opening.
"This is so the needle knows where to go," someone says.
“That’s reassuring,” I quip.
Coordinates, like the longitude and latitude lines of map, are entered into the computer. A needle penetrates my flesh as a well-drawn arrow pierces a bullseye.
Seated in this unyielding position for fifty minutes, I begin to sweat. Ice bags are settled onto my cramped neck, while the doctor and technician chatter incessantly in an attempt to distract me from my anxiety. I feel the numbing needle go in, several times, and my mouth fills with a metallic taste.
Although the procedure is complete, I am glued to the white vinyl chair in which I sit. Pieces of me are left on that plastic plate. They include but are not limited to: composure, tissue, blood, strength, perspiration and control. I don’t know how to do this – I don’t know if I can – and even though I am not, I feel alone.
I experience minor discomfort at the incision site, but basically the night is peaceful and I sleep well. Green and purple flesh reside beneath a wide bandage. Self-care has imposed a demand on my consciousness. Why is it so arduous to do for myself what I can skillfully do for another? Seasoned at helping loved ones locate the optimal doctor, pilot a hospital, and remaining a steadfast advocate, I am much less effective on my own behalf.
And life goes on, even when I feel it should have the common sense to slow down, offer some breathing space, consider a person’s feelings.
There is no pause. Life simply is, and life simply does.
The end of my waiting period is in sight, and thankfully, I have had a busy day. It begins with an appointment at the renowned Book Revue in Huntington, Long Island, where my book joins the ranks of other local, independent authors.
I reschedule the Michael Dresser radio interview for 5:30, so I do not answer the call from Zwanger Pesiri - as I am unprepared to hear bad news, in case it is, before finishing the live show.
Afterwards, I take a deep breath, and redial Zwanger’s number. The woman answering the phone says the person I need to speak with is on the other line.
“She’ll call you back as soon as she is done.”
That person does not call back for forty-five minutes.
"Hello, is this Wendy?"
"Yes." I hold my breath.
"I have good news, everything is benign."
Long after the click of her goodbye, I stand in a stupor of muffled gratitude for what I and my loved ones will not have to endure. I soak in benign as bafflement shrouds my clarity. With these results, I should be bursting with joy. But this biopsy stole a tranquility I hadn’t even realized I had borrowed.
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