So we’ve been in a pandemic 18 months. Seems like years at this point, but it’s only been 18 months. And I don’t know this because I have been keeping track of the days, or the meals I have prepared or the times I have told my children not to yell at each other. I know this because it is the third time I have waited with my friend to get mammogram results back. See, at the beginning of the pandemic, she had her first mammogram. She was called back for an ultrasound. I watched, heart breaking, as she cried and told me stories of her fear overcoming her as she imagined her husband and family living without her. It was fear taking over. I told her the statistics. She understood them, but something in our emotions – specifically fear – consumes us with worry. Anxiety wins. We mentally project ourselves into the grave.
Her results came back clean as she just had overly lumpy breasts with a few cysts they wanted to keep an eye on. But they wanted to see her every six months. It was a short six months before her next mammogram and we did it all again. She worried for a week before the appointment. She knows five people who have had breast cancer and worries she will be the sixth. She can’t focus on the life around her because anxiety becomes all-consuming, especially the hours before the mammogram. This time, however, she made sure she would have the mammogram read AT the appointment.
Kuddos to her. I never had that chance. I did not even know it was a thing. I waited weeks overall, losing sleep, not eating, not paying attention to life around me. Moments I will never get back.
This time, she is handling the stress of waiting for the appointment a bit better, knowing that she has gone through it twice before. However, because these types of cancers grow (hence the whole reason we watch them……we go back for annual or semi-annual appointments) means that her worry grows as well. Is this the mammogram that reveals something? Did the cyst get abnormal? Will there need to be a biopsy? Because we know so many people who have gone through this, we know what to think about. We know what questions to ask ourselves. We don’t necessarily expect to hear bad news, and we are never prepared for it if it comes, but because everyone knows someone who has had breast cancer or a breast cancer scare……..we think about it. We pontificate. We stew.
And that is why waiting to wait is the worst thing on earth. It makes us feel empty. At the same time, it makes our stomachs feel full of tiny electrodes that don’t stop zapping us.
So, this time her third time returning for a mammogram, I start sending funny gifs to her phone at 7am. I record a video of me doing my bike workout (this time we went to Mount Fuji) so she is distracted for a few minutes. Because by the morning of a test you have been anticipating for a week, when all you can think about is the long drive there, the longer wait in the waiting room and the eons-long wait for results (even though they are at the same appointment because you advocated for yourself), you need small distractions because the minutes seem like hours.
She texts me: How are the other women there so cool, calm and collected?
I reply: They aren’t. Its an act. I know this from experience.
She is finally done with her mammogram and waiting for an ultrasound. Waiting.
Waiting.
At this point, the waiting is also killing ME. Because I have been there, but I have also been with her this whole way……..through her frustrating experiences with less-than-cordial technicians, the waiting, the phone call when she has to have another scan or an ultrasound.
Worrying means you care. I must care a whole lot.
Still waiting.
Finally – all of her tests come back clean and she no longer has to be seen every six months. She can go back to a mammogram yearly! Celebration begins!
