Hold Your Breath

So I remember thinking in the shower yesterday, "Wow, I'm really surprised that the mammogram people haven't called . . . guess my gut feeling was wrong."

And yesterday afternoon, there was a call from a number that I didn't recognize and I answered it. I never answer those.

It was the mammogram people. "You need to come in again." They couldn't give a reason why and I was short with them . . . no, I can't come in tomorrow (duh, I have a life). I'll come in on Friday . . . and what is the reason for this repeat? I was told that I could call my doctor's office.

I find the phone number for the gynecologist. I hold. I am told that I have "a 7 mm mass on your right breast and asymmetrical tissue in your left breast". One should never have to hear mass in reference to their breasts. The nurse is explaining that it's my first film and that this happens all the time and that they have nothing to compare it to . . . but I'm wondering if I shouldn't have taken that offer for the next day appointment. Actually, my brain is melting in panic.

Of things about my body, my eyes and my boobs are at the top of the list. I like my boobs. I don't want new ones. And that was my panic thought for the next 24 hours until I could go to the rescheduled next day appointment, ditching work in the process. I like my boobs. I don't want new ones. There wasn't any panic about having cancer or it spreading throughout my body or dying . . . just I like my boobs . . . I don't want new ones . . .

I panicked at my mother, who was helpful until she said, "You don't really even have to worry until they send you for a digital one . . . they can't see anything on them until the digital one." Except that I HAD a digital mammogram from the get go. Oops. SM was very sympathetic and listened to all my whinyness . . . the first time I was kinda crazy in front of him.

I wore my lucky shoes and earrings in all my holes (six is luckier than five) and showed up when I was supposed to. Checking in was faster this time and the volunteer (I assume she was a volunteer, as she was way over eighty and could barely stand, let alone lead me) lead me to a different door in the Alice in Wonderland world of the Breast Care floor. I was handed a thin pale green bathrobe again and told that I already knew the drill. This time I used a locker . . . but had to pick a lucky number locker -- 264 was occupied, so I had to go with 262. Amazing how OCD I am in the middle of a losing your boobs panic.

A very smiley tech with a serious Latin accent calls me up. In the room I get to see my breasts backlighted on the wall, circles and arrows added showing concerns. Arrow to a round thing in my right breast. Circle around something that looks very much like a tail, a puppy's tail, in my left breast. Slightly different Princess Leia torture robot, same plate but instead of a clear plastic tray the size you would use for brownies, there is something the size of a petrie dish. The tech explains that this is going to be "more painful" and then there is a game sorta like Simon Says to line me up with the machine. "Put your right foot here . . . raise your arm up to the ceiling . . . now put it down on the machine . . . move your ribs to the left . . . " The whole idea is that they are getting closer and more detailed images. Once I was squished in there I was in so much pain that there was no way that I was breathing.

"Hold your breath" she says as she pushes the button, which I took as don't move, as I was already not breathing. We did this five more times and then I was walked back to the waiting room. There is relatively instant gratification, the radiologist looks at your new films right away. I nervously go back to reading "Vanity Fair" while listening to the woman across from me talk on the phone.

The same smiley tech comes to get me again and we go back to the same room and do the dance two more times. I would like to say that I was really freaked out at this point, but I was numb. I had done all I could have done, lucky locker number and all. The chips were going to fall where they may. Back in the waiting room, I continued glancing at the article on Paul Newman. The phone woman interrupted me, with the epiphany that we were ALL back for re-examination. It was an interesting descent . . . "wait, this is a different waiting room . . . are you here for a re-check? . . . are you? . . . hey, we're all here for the same thing? . . . how many times have you been back?" Finally, an older woman on oxygen took her under her wing, telling her stories of her many lumpectomies and biopsies. Not really comforting at all, but something to talk about.

They had taken the oxygen lady back and the panicky woman was back on the phone when they called me up again. Without much fanfare, I was given a piece of paper and told to come back in three years, when I'm 40. The checked box on the paper says pretty much the same thing. So I put on my clothes and went back to work. No tickertape. No balloons.

Since then I have had several "Life is too short for this crap cause I almost didn't have boobs" moments, which might be a good way to live, maybe. And quite frankly, I didn't really realize that I was that attached to them.

Joining the Information Age

As a teacher, I try to keep up with the trends of communication. This blog started because my students were blogging and I wanted to see what it was all about.

So at the start of this new school year, I took a look at how my students like to communicate. They do not email . . . email is soooo passe, so last week. They text. They text all the time. They would spend their whole time in school texting, if we didn't let them plug into the internet so they can illegally try and get past the firewall so they can . . . well, I don't know what the fad of the minute is. Guess I will find out next week. (I was going to say Twitter, but I think that is "soooo five minutes ago" by now)

So in my resolution to be more organized this year and therefore making my life easier, smoother and less stressed (HA!) (and yes, I make resolutions in late August . . . makes more sense than January), I sent the whole yearbook staff a letter about goals for the first weeks of school. One of those goals was to actually have yearbook students selling yearbooks at registration, instead of Emily selling all the yearbooks. In the letter, I gave them my email address . . . and my phone number so they could text me.

Adults reel at this idea. Give them my phone number? Give the enemy my phone number? What if they call you? For the most part they don't. If anything, by giving them my phone number, I get more parent calls . . . which if you think about it, the school will give them my number anyhow. I did, however, get a lot of texts. Many, many text messages. More text messages than I have received from any of my friends. And my friends are not particularly low tech.

And all of the text messages are long . . . paragraphs. Students would wouldn't write me three sentences in ninth grade are sending me books on my phone. Perhaps they all have qwerty keyboards? I do not. So I am seeing the light on "ttyl" speech. It's just less for me to figure out on the number board.

So my triumph today, besides getting a bunch of students to volunteer to sit around and sell yearbooks basically by tricking them by letting them text, was to group their numbers in my phone address book and be able to send them a mass text. It was so cool. Except that they all replied . . .

Keep in mind that when I text, I have to count . . . a "u" is 8 two times . . . one, two . . . so not only do I have to spell in my head, but then scan and count. Tedious. I have to get a new phone for this.

Worst Case Scenario

I went over my handlebars today.

Trail biking in Lake Shore Park . . . last mile and a half . . . a large rut downhill . . . I'm usually good on the downhill, but I fell last time and was perhaps too cautious this time. Felt myself being too cautious. Went down too slow and my wheel stuck.

Somehow ended up curled up in a ball. My knees hurt . . . badly . . . and I wasn't sure if I could get up. Before I got my wits about me a person further up the trail stopped to make sure I was okay. SM was ahead of me and hadn't heard me go down. I was lying there, considering the option of calling out "Christopher" loudly (my verbal sign that I am really hurt . . . I never call him that) as this woman, a stranger, questioned my status. This made me get up, as it is rather embarrassing to writhe in pain for a stranger. SM pulled up shortly, dusted me off, looked at my wounds (some abrasions on my right leg at that point . . . now a wicked bruise) and gave me a little hug . . . and then told me to get my ass back on the bike. Which is what I needed at the time. I hate the last mile of that trail.

Really, going over my handlebars WAS my worst case scenario . . . and now it's been done. I need to shop for that new helmet though.

So my right leg is rapidly becoming one large bruise . . . two large on my shin from earlier in the week from a pedal and when I fell and my leg hit a stump (from a rut going uphill that time) and my current injuries. I'm off the trail for at least a week.

I like the riding . . . it's peaceful, the woods are nice . . . but I find myself trying to keep up with SM, which keeps me from enjoying the peaceful . . . and keeping me from seeing things that I want to see. Like frogs. Or deer. Or just trees and dirt.

Trail riding takes a lot of concentration as it is, to stay on the darn trail and not run into trees or fall off your bike. And I am less concentrated when I am tired or pushing to keep up. So I have to work on not being so competitive. It's a single-track trail, so the boy will be at the end. And a relatively little park, so he'll hear me if I yell.

I do need to get a little backpack or hydration pack to keep my cell in . . . right now I keep it in his backpack, along with my ID. Which does me no good if he is ahead. Or any goodin the scenarios my mother comes up with concerning me and being in the woods.

Oh, and my neck hurts. And my left thumb.

No biking for a week.

Vidalia and the Mammogram

I went to the huge complex of hospital for a mammogram yesterday.

One of my cute young friends . . . who has just turned thirty . . . asked why in the world I would get a mammogram. No lumps or concerns. No. I'm just almost forty. And that's when you get mammograms.

So I arrive at the huge complex o'hospital and find the building I'm suppose to check into, a whole floor assigned to "breast care". I turn in my forms. I try to knit but before I can get a row in they have called me for the questions. Why the person who took my form can't ask me the questions (what is your name? what is your address? what is your birth date? what is the top velocity of an African swallow?) I don't know. So back to knitting and again before I can finish the row they call me and send me to the original person who took my form.

"So you're Vidalia?" "No. I'm Emily." And then the first form woman starts chatting about how she should know that I'm Emily because I'm not ninety. We stand. They call Vidalia again. And again. And Vidalia comes rolling up.

Vidalia is wearing a windbreaker (it was 92 degrees outside at the time), an orange t-shirt, a big brimmed cotton hat, pull on pants and tennis shoes. And she is doing a monologue about how crappy it is that she has to have a mammogram. "I'm too small" she says, head motioning toward her chest. She talks down the short hallway and during the first form woman's speech about what we are supposed to do in the dressing rooms. And this would be okay, except that I need to know what to do . . . this may be Vidalia's last mammogram, but it's my first. Vidalia, busy with her complaints, tries to join me in the dressing room, knocking the door in with her walker but the first form woman redirects her. I am now wondering if Vidalia should be alone. Maybe she should be in the dressing room with me.

I "disrobe to the waist", fold up my t-shirt and bra and stuff them into my knitting bag rather than using the lockers. When I am done, I am supposed to take a clipboard and fill out another form. I don't dally and just as I put pen to paper in the interior waiting room, they call my name. There are seven other ladies, all "disrobed" in green, waiting I assume. How can I be first. "Shouldn't I fill out this form first?" "Oh. Yeah. (sigh) We'll come back."

The form takes me ten seconds. I only have to check four boxes. No problems, nothing to check for, no discharge, no history. I try to find the person who came for me ten seconds ago and am shooed back into the interior waiting room by that same person. "We'll come and get you." Whatever. Vidalia is done now, but can't carry the form with her walker. The closest of the seven women gets up to help her and Vidalia immediately takes her seat. So I move so the displaced woman can have my seat. "Emily?"

We go into a room with two computers and something that looks like the robot from the torture scene in Star Wars. I am told to sit and that she is going to find another room for me. Evidently my boobs are too big for this torture robot and we would want to do several "takes" and there is a torture robot with a bigger "plate" somewhere. Five minutes staring at the hospital "Service, Attitude, Ownership, Excellence" screen saver and I'm being taken to another room. With a bigger plate.

Basically, for those who have never had a mammogram, you get topless and lay your boob on a plate. They then squish said boob to their liking with a clear plastic lid. Like fitting one boob into one of those ziploc disposable containers (that we don't really throw away, but wash out and reuse for chili over and over, killing tupperwear) . . . but a container just a bit too small, so the word ziploc gets dented into, well, in this simile, your boob. Oh, and they had me hold the other one "out of the way". So me, topless, one breast mooshed into a torture robot from the Princess Leia scene in Star Wars, the other breast being held out of the way. Oh, and I'm bending my knees slightly. Which is all well and good. Not embarrassing or uncomfortable at all.

"Okay. Stop breathing." Stop breathing? Stop breathing? The position is so uncomfortable that holding my breath does seem pretty simple, if not natural. And there is a "rrrrrr-ing" sound. It seems endless. And then she lets my boob out of the robot.

We do this three more times . . . the last two times with me hugging the robot in addition to holding my other breast "out of the way". The last two times are much more painful, plate digging into my armpit so the not breathing thing is even easier. I have to concentrate to start breathing at one point. And then I have to wait to make sure that everything "goes through" but I get to but my green robe back on and stare at the inside of my breast on a computer screen. After a confirming "beep", I am asked if I have any questions . . . and all of my questions are answered with "they'll call you" . . . so I am left wondering why they asked if I had any questions. "We don't do any diagnosing here . . . we don't even look at the films." Great. So what else would I have questions about? Where's Vidalia? When will they call me? Where did you get these fetching green robes? Did you mean for that to look just like the torture robot in Star Wars?

After determining that I only had questions that they couldn't answer, I was told to follow the signs back to the dressing room, which then had signs about the hamper, and the hamper had signs about the exit. I don't have to go back for another three years . . . unless they call me, which I'm trying not to think about.

I have no idea how it went with Vidalia.

Absinthe

I'm going out with the girls tonight for absinthe.

As I explained this to my mother . . . "Absinthe . . . you know absinthe? Green fairies? Van Gogh went insane? Absinthe? Just recently became legal again?" To which my mother replied, "Why would you want to drink that? Probably tastes awful."

And yes, it probably does taste awful. But I haven't met a bad idea that I didn't like. So absinthe drinking it is . . .

Today I melted my brain on MTV. And yesterday they finally voted off one of those two girls on Project Runway. The ones that I could not tell apart. LeAnn stayed. Jennifer was judged off. I no longer have to think, which long haired dowdy girl with glasses is that? And now, in addition to watching "Arrested Development", my television education is being expanded with "Venture Brothers". I can't wait to get "Pushing Daisies" and make SM watch them "only when I'm there". I could have been through all three seasons of "Arrested Development" by now. I have nothing to do. Excuse me, I have lots to do . . . I have very unstructured time.

I am waining toward vampire time. Again. So finally it is summer like it should be. No doctors appointments. My fill of MTV and it's "Sweet 16 Bling Countdown" to remind me how stupid the world is . . . bike rides to Royal Oak for coffee.

Just have to paint my dining room before the Woodward Cruise.

The Costs of a Staph Infection

I just received the insurance statement . . . although I may still owe some more . . .

For just the 11 visits to the infectious disease center? 10,000 dollars.



That's not with the dermatologist visits.

Ten thousand dollars. To see a doctor twice and for a nurse to spend five minutes poking me every day (only because it usually took them more than once to find a vein). Ten thousand dollars.

I think most of the costs were for the actual IVs, or the liquid contained in them (500 hundred dollars) . . .

But if I did not have medical insurance, or just "catasophic" insurance, I would never recover. My union is talking about going to "health insurance accounts" . . . ten thousand dollars is like, five years of that account.



So thank goodness that I have health insurance (a lot of people don't).

Sunday Dinner

I made dinner last night. And it was complimented.

Went bike riding at Stoney Creek Metro Park, which kicked my a$$. The trails are well marked -- green for "beginner", blue for "more difficult" and black for "OMG I'm going to die". It is not single track (trails that go in a big circle and end where they begin, which is handy if you don't know the trails) and SM has been a couple of times but not enough to know the trails well. So there was some Emily walking up steep hills . . . I get to the point that I cannot climb anymore. I'm good with downhill (I know, who isn't? But it's sometimes hard to stay on your bike) but I am still working on the uphill climbs. Part of it is getting enough momentum and know how and when to shift gears. But most of it is having the strength and endurance. SM is very patient, even though I tell him that he can go ride ahead to his heart's content.

Made it home without needing to be airlifted . . . SM dug out one of the ugly laundry line holders in my backyard and started trimming. He's really skillful. He knows how to trim without killing the plants and seems to really like grooming my backyard thicket.

So I had a little steak that I picked up from Holiday Market, a sirloin medallion that I figured would be perfect for me with a bit left over . . . but with enough vegetables really it would work with two people. Made grilled red onion and some asparagus. Boiled some new potatoes and had to break out the cookbook for those (how long do you boil potatoes?) . . . tossed them with a little butter and some fresh rosemary. Oh, and sauteed some mushrooms. So it was really simple, other than knowing how to oil the vegetables before I put them on the grill. Am getting better at poking at the steak to see how done it is . . . oh, and had brownies with fresh raspberries for dessert.

So had the ingredients for a whole dinner, in my house, and was able to combine them AND time them to make a full dinner. Was told that everything was good! "Well, I'm kinda a picky eater and I liked everything" Not that I want my status of worst cook in the family to change . . . I don't want to take on Thanksgiving dinner or anything.

Please Sir

Will you sign your book?

Going to a Derek Hess book signing tonight . . . and am fighting the urge to get there when it opens. The book is about how he hates the right-wing, so I might not be all into that . . . but it's Derek Hess! I'm all gooey about the possibility of being in his presence.