The Unspoken Joy of Mammography
Sitting in the awful silence of the mammography office, I can’t help but think what it really needs is a festive party atmosphere. I realize I’m lucky; I’m there as a precaution, not a necessity, and too many women walk out of this room with little if anything to celebrate, or so it seems at the time. But why can we not have our bad news delivered under the shining lights of a disco ball? Is there a better place to have Gloria Gaynor belting out her anthem of survival? Shouldn’t it suit the desire to hold on to life with both hands when we feel it start to slip away to have a fight song playing, and a celebration that here’s one more day, one more moment that we are still here to fight?
Instead it’s quiet, the occasional irritating clack of a keyboard and the too-tall plants judging rudely from their precise placements. I’m here early, my appointment too close to preschool drop-off to go home, too far from a Starbucks. Might as well sit here and wait.
I’ve been getting mammograms for almost a decade now. My mom was diagnosed early, so the recommendation for me was to get them 10 years before her diagnosis. They are not the terrible production they seem to be when you are 16 and horrified by the stories of your mothers’ friends. The system is very efficient and the technology has made it as quick and as comfortable as it can be considering your breasts are compressed between two plastic plates. Don’t look down. Just don’t. You sign in, you undress from the waist up and wipe off your lotion, perfume and deodorant and some of your dignity, throw on a gown and slide your clothes and the rest of your dignity in a locker. This is not the place for dignity, this is the place for women’s lives, and the two, in large segments of our stories, rarely meet. Or maybe it’s just that dignity wears a different face for us; a quiet pride in who we are rather than being defined. by how we respond to what we’re up against. Maybe it’s that dignity is inherent in womanhood and overt displays of it are like a suit of armor.
She asks questions. It’s light medical patter, inoffensive and necessary. Do you have a family history of breast cancer? When were they diagnosed? Are they still living? Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Are you on any hormonal treatments? What kind of birth control? How long? Onset of menses? Great. Relax your shoulder. Left first. Is this OK? Great. Right now. Is this OK? No, lady, none of this is OK, but at least I’m still alive to be not OK.
In 7–10 days you’ll hear back from either your gynecologist or primary care provider that you’re in the clear or that you’re not, and it is possible that time is a fluid nightmare designed to wreck you. These are, with a history like mine, the longest 7–10 days of your life. It isn’t so much that I’m worried, because that would imply an uncertainty I don’t feel. I am waiting for what seems like the inevitable, and it’s so much worse. Logic, like dignity, has no place here. Not for me.
All of my results have come back negative, and there’s no reason to believe it will be otherwise. I’ve never felt any abnormalities, and I am religious about self-exams. A few years ago I had full-panel genetic testing done, with no markers for cancer. It should have been, and was, intensely and briefly, a relief and a chance for me to reset my thinking; instead of here are the reasons I will, it would be here are the reasons I won’t. It sounds wonderful, and I am working on it.
I like to have a good cry after my appointments. It’s cathartic. There’s a lot of self-inflicted pressure and melodrama going on behind a brave face, and when you can finally say it’s over, it’s done, not again for another 6–12 months, it bursts out of your pores and ducts and you’re sweating and weeping and the very definition of the word “distraught”, and it’s euphoric and miserable at the same time. It’s done, I did it; now to let it all go, let it vine out through my limbs and be absorbed back into the nutrient-rich soil of everyday life. It’s done, I’m back home, and I am still here. I am still here.
