Math

I drive to Burlington buoyed by the wisdom, the well-wishes and the positive energy of my husband and friends, sharing the long road with the usual sparse traffic of pick-up trucks, business travelers and the occasional semi on a long haul or Amish buggy. I note that I’m not as calm as I’d like to be, wonder why that surprises me, and take comfort in the scheduler’s words: 80% of the time these things turn out to be nothing.
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When you get a screening mammogram, the “yearly” thing a woman of my age is supposed to do, you go to the older, original hospital building just down from the UVM campus, give your registration information and then proceed to MAMMOGRAPHY. There you’re escorted to a cubicle where you’re give instructions to take off everything from the waist up, don a hospital gown and proceed to a small waiting room. There are usually a few other women similarly clad sitting there, and there’s the usual friendly camaraderie of female strangers sharing an unpopular duty.

Today my destination was someplace called THE BREAST CLINIC, on campus in the new medical center building. I find it adjacent to ONCOLOGY, am greeted and escorted to a changing cubicle, and then directed to the waiting room. Unlike the familiar MAMMOGRAPHY waiting room, this one is silent. I note the age range of the other women: the youngest is probably in her early thirties; one woman must be approaching seventy-five or eighty. There are seven of us seriously reading last summer’s People or Good Housekeeping. One wise soul has a book.

A pleasant but serious technician calls my name, and we proceed to a room with the familiar tit-squisher machine. Modern technology presents the breast images on a computer screen that you – the patient – can see within seconds of the x-ray. ‘Funny to see that piece of my anatomy flattened into something resembling a half-moon, but there, in what I assume is “the lower inside quadrant” I can see something resembling a small cloud against the darker sky that is apparently normal breast tissue.

Filming concludes, and the technician tells me I will need to have sonography on the left side. I had been told that this would happen if today’s mammography confirmed the suspicion raised by last week’s pictures. By now I have a sinking feeling in my gut, but I smile and thank her and return to the waiting room. New women have replaced three of the previous waiters.

My wait is short, and the next technician is perky. She explains that the doctor may want to come in to observe while she’s doing the sonogram, and I assume this would probably not be an encouraging situation. “Lefty” gets smeared with warm gel and the tech and I make small-talk as she moves the sensor over and around the area in question, ever watching her computer screen and clicking her keyboard. And then she’s finished.

She asks if I’m comfortable and tells me she will return in about five minutes. They’re a surprisingly short five minutes during which I have a closer look at the horse photos on the shelf above her desk and try to make some sense out of the image on her computer monitor. And then she’s back: “It’s a fluid-filled cyst,” she says with a smile, “and absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re back on regular screening mammography. You’re free to go; come back in a year.”
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And with that, my tension and fears melt away and the woman I see in the cubicle mirror looks markedly happier than the one I saw an hour ago. Maybe I should be joyous, but I’m not. There were ten women in the waiting room this morning, "eighty percent of the time these things turn out to be nothing," and even I don’t need a calculator to do the math.
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Image from Breast Friends, whose Antigua webpage says: Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting women worldwide, with there being a 1 in 8 chance throughout a woman’s lifetime that she will be affected. Yet this cancer is 90% curable when caught early, and if caught early 95% of women live more than 5 years following diagnosis.
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Thank you Crabby, Katy, Whim, Karan, Becky, DNR, Robin, Barb, Em, Foam, Carmon, C-Dell and Sling for being "with me" yesterday. I'd like to believe that if each of us is diligent in getting the recommended screenings, even those of us who cry will be shedding unnecessary tears.
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And thank you sweet Bob for the beautiful roses, the shot of Bailey's and the warm hug when I got home. I am one lucky wizard.