This Post Is About Mammograms (and Anxiety)

I’m telling you now, I don’t want to hear a single thing about how this post is inappropriate or uncomfortable for you because it deals with body parts we don’t usually discuss out loud.  You read the title.  If you don’t want to read the post, don’t read the post.  I said what I said.

From time to time, I find myself feeling very proud of my (usually forty-something) friends who post pictures of themselves in pink hospital gowns to remind us all to schedule our yearly mammograms, to remind us all that this is important for our health, to remind us all that it’s not that bad.  They are always smiling.  I’m never going to post a picture like that.  If you’re waiting for it, you are in the wrong place.  There is no picture.  But it occurred to me, today, that I might be able to offer a much needed reminder to take care of your body from the perspective of someone who doesn’t find this particularly social media photo worthy.   I thought I might share my own morning with you as a gentle permission to be anxiety ridden, frustrated, terrified, and exhausted, but to still go do the screening.  That’s what this is.  It's probably a little bit of me processing for my own sake, too.  My experience looks like this:

At least two weeks prior:  Start worrying about the upcoming mammogram appointment.  Do a self-exam and make sure to note that everything feels off and you are probably already dead.  Check to make sure you have the right date and time written down somewhere.  Realize you do not, in fact, have anything written down, even though you are certain this is the right time of year, and you must have made an appointment.  Call radiology.  Wait for them to find your appointment date and time and to speak to you like you are terribly irresponsible for not having made a note of it when you left last year, in a frenzied state of shock and tears.  Thank them for their patience with someone so ridiculous.  Hang up and write the date and time down in at least a couple of places.  Plug the hospital address into GPS, several times, just to make sure it hasn’t moved.  Try to calculate how long it will actually take to get there, because you live in Boston, and GPS is always wrong.  Wonder how it’s possible you have been holding your breath for several hours.  Remember you’re probably already dead.  Breathe.  Repeat, ad nauseam for many days.  Well, except the part about calling radiology.  Do not do that again!  Binge watch A Million Little Things, because it is the perfect show for people who live in Boston, who have loved ones dealing with suicidal ideations, and who are terrified of cancer.  No seriously.  Don’t do that.  But I did that.

Day of Appointment:

5:00am: Alarm goes off.  Check phone and realize that you have a missed call from the eleven o’clock hour last night, because apparently you dared to fall asleep before 3am.  Panic that someone is dead.  Realize that there is no voicemail and reassure yourself that probably no one is dead.  Hit snooze.  Do not close your eyes again.

5:01am: Consider canceling appointment.

5:03am: Drag yourself out of bed and gather the clothes you set out the night before, even though you never set clothes out the night before.  Remember that you did this, because you probably wouldn’t be able to function in this moment.  Wonder to yourself why you bought a cute new bra.  Take a bath.  A really hot bath.  Consider canceling appointment and staying in the bathtub all day long.  Finally get out.  Get dressed, but do not put on deodorant, lotion, body spray, etc., because it will screw the whole thing, and you are really hoping to only have to do this once, this year. 

5:35am: Make coffee.  Sit down to drink coffee and remember that you were going to treat yourself to Starbucks after surviving the mammogram, if it doesn’t kill you.  Drink the coffee anyway.

5:40am:  Panic attack starts.  Consider canceling appointment.  Consider whether or not you should wake someone else up to drive.  Try to remember where your shoes are.

6:00am: Alarm goes off.  You are supposed to leave now.  Check GPS.  Realize that, sure enough, if you had left 30 minutes ago you would already be there, but now you will be cutting it close to your appointment time, because…  see:  you live in Boston, and GPS ETA changes drastically, by the second.  Remember your shoes are under a bed in the basement.  Run down the stairs.  Pull your shoes on.  Run up the stairs and out the door.

6:01am: Start the car, open your wallet to make sure you have your insurance card, your driver’s license, and your bank card.  Remember that you actually already checked for all of these things before you left the house.

6:02am:  Now it gets complicated, because you have to decide on a playlist.  Hit the one that has songs your students shared as the most meaningful to them.  Don’t forget to skip “I Can Only Imagine,” because that’s for when you’re dead. 

6:03am:  Pull out of driveway.  Note that for every minute you travel, GPS adds another minute to your ETA.  Recognize that you will never get there.  Consider canceling appointment.

6:05am:  GPS is screaming that you should not enter the expressway!  Take an alternate route.  You trust GPS.  You take an alternate route.  The add a minute to the ETA for every minute you drive slows to about half the pace.  Recognize that you probably will get there.  Consider canceling appointment.

Fun Fact:  The next 40 minutes actually included a running commentary in my head on the appropriateness of every song on my playlist.  Also, my playlist transitioned from songs from students to songs randomly thrown together over the past several weeks.  I was entirely confused when Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” blasted through the speakers.  Totally inappropriate for the day, but it did come on just as I actually crossed the Boston city line, and I love Boston, so that was kind of cool.

6:45am: GPS indicates you have arrived.  You have definitively not arrived.  Start panicking about parking.  Choose a parking garage.  Recognize that this is not the right parking garage.  Park.  Grab a mask.  Think about how nice it is that you feel a little less alone wearing a homemade mask from a friend.  Remember that they are going to make you switch it out the moment you walk into a building.  Consider canceling appointment.  Check wallet for insurance card, driver’s license, and bank card (oh my gosh, really?).

Side Note:  I feel as if my life would be infinitesimally easier if medical facilities in this area had free parking lots that actually corresponded with the buildings for which they were intended.  Even though I love to drive, the Boston parking situation stresses me out to the absolute max, and I can deal with that on the regular, but it is just too much to add it to medical procedures.

6:55am: Walk into the wrong building.  Ask directions.  Take the wrong elevator.  Ask directions again.  Get back on the elevator.  Walk past the people who gave you the wrong directions.  Roll your eyes.  Walk into another wrong building.  Realize that you are now going to be late.  Consider canceling appointment.  Actually call the phone number.  Hang up.  Ask for directions.  Sigh heavily.  Walk to the right building.  Switch masks.  Walk past the right elevator.  Turn around.  Get on the elevator.  Get off the elevator.  Wave your hand in front of the magical door.  Get in line.

7:23am: Greet receptionist.  Apologize for being eight minutes late.  Recognize that she is going to be angry, because this totally happened last year.  Listen as she very irritably telephones the radiologist to let her know “the 7:15 just walked in.”  Consider leaving.  Recognize that that would mean you would have to make another appointment and start all over.  Go into full on shock when the receptionist’s face changes entirely as she compliments your glasses.  Breathe.  Give thanks for gimmicky fashion accessories.  Wonder if you should have also worn your glitter boots.  Try to verify information.  Forget what health insurance company you have.  Pull out your insurance card with shaky hands.  Feel glad that you checked (three times) to make sure you had it.

7:25am: Take pink hospital gown and personal belongings bag and walk through a door that leads to the second waiting area, with changing rooms.  Remember we’re in the middle of a pandemic.  Stand paralyzed for a moment, wondering if the changing rooms are clean.  Strategically consider which room is least likely to have already been used this morning.  Pick the middle room.  Find that the lock doesn’t work.  Consider switching rooms but decide that this is probably a good sign that nobody used this room, and you are already going to be naked in front of someone in a few minutes, so determine this is as good a place as any to change.  Stand there for a moment.  Remember you’re late.  Take your shoes off.  Remember you actually don’t have to undress from the waist down.  Put your shoes back on.  Pull off your sweatshirt.  Pull off your cami.  Pull off your really cute bra.  Stuff everything in the personal belongings bag.  Think about how hospitals issue these bags to families when their loved ones die.  Realize you haven’t thought about death, specifically, in at least twenty minutes.  Tie that pink gown together.  Open the door.  Sit down in the waiting room.

7:30am:  Greet radiologist.  She’s really nice.  Recognize that this whole mask thing is such a blessing, because it prevents people from watching your face for signs of a panic attack, and you are staring to have another one.  Laugh nervously while answering all the questions about family history and acknowledging that, yes, you were here twice last year.  Legitimately laugh over the fact that even though you have gained a few pounds back from Covid baking, it was not enough to change your cup size.   

7:35am:  Follow directions.  Untie Gown.  Pull right arm out.  Move your feet this way.  Look up.  Realize that there has been so much lack of human touch in the past year that it is incredibly odd that a complete stranger is touching your naked body.  Try not to think about that.  Move your arm this way.  Breathe gently.  Don’t move.  Breathe Gently.  Don’t Move.  Don’t Breathe………. Wonder if you can keep holding that breath………. Breathe.  Recognize your arms are shaking.  Try to get a full, deep breath in while you can.  Yeah, that’s not happening.  Answer questions about your work.  Try to wrap your mind around the fact that a radiologist just said that people need pastors as much as therapists right now.  Think about how you so desperately need both but have neither (spouses do not count).  Listen to radiologist note that we need to shoot that one again, because we didn’t get all of the tissue in.  Shoot it again.  And now from the side.  And again.  And now take your left arm out.  And shoot it twice.  And now from the side.  And again.  And breathe.

No idea what time am: Listen to radiologist say that you will get a letter in the mail if further imaging is not needed.  Fully analyze what that might mean, because it sounds different than we’ll call you if further imaging is needed, but otherwise, you’ll get a letter in the mail.  Try not to think too deeply about the possible inferences and differences in those two statements.  Please, oh please, oh please, just once this year.

Sometime late in the 7:00am hour:  Choose the same changing room to get dressed in.  Realize that you will never make it home without using a public bathroom.  Panic briefly about whether or not the bathroom is clean enough but then realize that it appears to not have been used since last being cleaned.  Sigh of relief.  Literally drop hospital bracelet in toilet.  Actually laugh, because life is funny.  Fish hospital bracelet out of toilet.  Is this even happening?  Wash hands.  Twice.  Return to reception to pick up information on how to get test results online.  Realize you are standing (six feet) behind someone who is way too young to be here for an annual exam.  Watch as she fidgets.  Try not to listen to her give her birth date.  Panic about the uncertainty of life.  Breathe.  Consider just snagging the information and making an appointment for next year sometime… later…  Walk up to receptionist.  Ask for information.  Take information.  Realize she is scheduling an appointment for next year.  Decide to roll with it in hopes that you really will not have to come back until next year.  Take the 7:15am, even though she mentions you could have the 7:30.  Promise not to follow the GPS next year.  Laugh nervously again.  Walk out the door.  Board the elevator.  Walk the wrong way to the exit.  Circle back.  Answer the lobby receptionist’s question about whether or not you are OK.  Smile and joke about just walking the wrong way.  Can’t get out fast enough.  Open door to outside.  Fresh air.  Breathe.  Breathe hard.  Breathe fast.  Breathe. 

8:00am:  Walk to parking garage.  Panic (but not so much in the clinical sense this time) briefly about not being able to find vehicle.  Remember you always lose your vehicle in parking garages.  This is normal.  Find vehicle.  Get in.  Start ignition.  Remove mask.  Remember you were supposed to pay for parking in the lobby.  Oh, heck no.  Look for signs for other options.  Put mask back on.  Stop ignition.  Get out of vehicle and proceed to stairwell.  Find no machine to pay for parking (even though there was a sign).  Decide then and there that you are not walking back into the building.  It would totally be better to go to jail for taking out the exit barrier.  Return to vehicle.  Check wallet for driver’s license, bank card, and parking garage ticket.  Start ignition.  Take off mask.  Start music.  Enter favorite drive-thru breakfast destination into GPS.  Drive to top floor of parking garage.  Breathe, because you are no longer underground and can see the sun.  Proceed to exit.  Find that there is, indeed, an option to pay for parking, and you don’t have to do anything illegal.  Exit parking garage.

I really cannot imagine that anyone read all of this, but if you did, you might notice that the 2.4 seconds in the changing room with the pink gown just doesn’t quite capture the energy that it takes for some of us to engage in the simple act of taking care of ourselves with preventative screening.  Honestly, this has cost me so much valuable time over the past two weeks, and it will not fully let up until I get that letter (I hope) in the mail.  If instead, like last year, I get a phone call, it won’t let up until the whole process is repeated and whatever further testing, treatments, etc. are necessary have been completed/resolved.  And if I’m completely honest, it still won’t fully let up.  Ever.  We know this from the great lung cancer scare (that wasn’t actually cancer) of 2015.  This is what anxiety with medical triggers looks like.  Most days, I’m fine.  I have often made an attempt to stack medical appointments, so I only have to be not fine on rare occasions.  Somehow, this year, annual physicals, and mammograms, and bloodwork, and dermatology appointments, and the ophthalmologist (not to mention occasional Covid testing) ended up scattered all over the place, and it’s been a little rocky.  But I say all of this to end with my own reminder and encouragement to you to schedule the mammogram, and don’t cancel it, no matter how many times you think about it.  Have a great playlist ready.  If (like my awesome friends) you feel like you can, share those pink gown selfies.  If (like me) you feel like you can’t, then at least keep breathing (except when the radiologist tells you not to).