I’m anxious about I. The house I’m buying has proved to have huge amounts of damp in it, possibly to the sub floor timbers. I’m also terrified about myself. One of our group had a dodgy scan a couple of weeks ago and had a week of terror while they analysed her biopsy and finally decided it wasn’t cancer. The thought of another year like the one I’ve just had makes me want to give up.
I’m OK until Wednesday but then I start getting scared. By Thursday morning I’m terrified.
10.30 I have an appointment in the plastics clinic. I wanted to see my surgeon to discuss how safe it was, lipofilling my scar, given that I’d only finished radio therapy 4 months ago. She wasn’t there. I wasn’t keen on the bloke, her registrar (I get confused by the terms). He was very new school; very ‘look the patient in the eye and emote’. I don’t like boorishness but come on, someone that is going to cut you open needs to radiate bloody confidence!
The downside is that my plastics consultant is leaving. I knew this. The REALLY bad bit is that she isn’t being replaced and I’ve got to go on the waiting list for one of the other bloody consultants to wait for the second operation; the big one. Should be within 16 weeks officially but we all know how waiting list times are increasing again under the bloody Tories.
Still. All this minutiae is just distraction from the major action of the day. The scans.
R and I kill time in town, waiting. We have lunch. Or rather he does. I have soup if only to kill the sick feeling in my stomach. If all goes well at my scan, today is weigh in day at fat club and I don’t want to ruin my diet.
2.30. No receptionist at the clinic. I go to the breast clinic to ask but by the time I get back, she’s there. I’m second one in. As I walk through the doors I feel as if I’m going to the executioner. The minor distraction of the fear of pain in my operative boob from the mammogram helps. I’m still a wimp, but at times, physical pain is a relief from the mental torment of fear and worry.
The mammogram goes well. It is uncomfortable this year. Last year, ironically, when I HAD cancer, it was pain free. I go back to the internal waiting area to wait for the ultrasound. Now the terror really sets in. I’m there for ages. Probably 30 minutes, maybe more. Periodically, I feel myself becoming hysterical, unable to control my jittering thoughts and thumping heart rate. To calm myself, I close my eyes and do my meditation breathing, totally ignoring the woman next to me who is trying to chat. I REALLY resent the older women that are in the clinic for their check-up mammograms. They should do different clinics. Those in there, chatting, never having faced the terror of cancer, should not be mixed in with younger women that have faced death (OK, I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s how I feel at this particular point).
Finally, I’m called in. The consultant is the one that diagnosed me last year. I tell her this and she apologises. Poor bloody woman! The familiarity, however is good, because I’m not embarrassed to ask her if my mammograms were OK. Both clear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel as if someone has lifted my head off my shoulders. My brain has left the building. She scans my boob. I have a seroma. Would I like it drained? Nah. Leave it.
Dressed, I float out to R in the waiting room. He is oblivious to my relief and witters on about something else. Outside, I’m a danger to myself. Fortunately, there is enough of a signal between my brain, floating in the stratosphere somewhere, and my body and I grab his hand as we’re crossing the road because I realise that I am incapable at this point of propelling myself safely through traffic.
I don’t know what happened to the rest of that day. Oh yes, I lost 4 ½lbs at fat club. The rest is gone, never to return. Whoopee!!!
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