April 19, 2021
My first mammogram - at 31-years old. That's not something I thought I'd ever have to say.
The appointment was at an Imaging Center here in town. I went to this first appointment alone. I was told when I made the appointment that one person could accompany me to my appointment and wait in the waiting room, but that it would be better to come alone if possible - pandemic and what not - so that's what I did. I went alone. I was welcomed by the sweetest receptionist and she was extremely kind to me, doing her best to help me relax as much as possible before the exam.
I sat in the waiting area, The Great British Bake Off was on the television. I was called back into the locker room waiting area, instructed to undress to my waist and put on an awkwardly unattractive cloth scarf-like piece of material with a snap at the neck. I gripped the two sides of cloth at the middle of my chest and willed it not to come apart as I headed to the lounge seating in the locker room.
And there I sat, half-naked, waiting - The Great British Bake Off playing in the background as my mind ran wild. A few women in their 60's/70's came in and got ready for their own exams. Each getting called back by a nurse or a tech, and off they went into different rooms. I kept taking low, level breaths - telling myself over and over again - "This is nothing. It's just a cyst. I'm still so young. I breastfed for 15-months. This is nothing."
The tech called me back into the room. We did the whole panini press song and dance. It wasn't bad at all, the worst part was cramming my face up against the side of the machine in order to fit all of my breast tissue inside of the imaging machine. And then it was done. I was told to go wait in the locker room lounge again and the doctor would review the results.
The tech came back in and told me that the doctor instructed them to do additional imaging and sent me across the hall for an ultrasound. After a new tech took ultrasound images, she said she would share them with the doctor to review and let us know what was next.
I sat there in the dimly lit exam room, and when she came back in she told me that the images revealed a mass, not a fluid-filled cyst as I'd hoped, and would require a biopsy of the cells to learn more. I was frozen, my worst fears becoming reality. It wasn't a cyst. It could be something worse. I would have to come back. This wasn't over. Not even close.
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