Lumps and Light

In a few weeks my ovaries are coming out. My doctor is younger than I am. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring and she has amazing long, red curly hair. Her doctor’s profile says that she can speak Russian fluently. I also looked her up on social media, because this is what you do now. Nothing alarming showed up, so I guess she is competent to remove my broken parts. She told me that I could have nothing inside me for eight weeks. No toys or boys or tampons. Uh, I’m the one that says the funny stuff, babe. But I let it slide. Anyway, she was giving me an exam and she felt a lump in my breast—the left one, not the cancer side. I knew it was there. I’ve been told scar tissue leaves lumps sometimes. I told her as much. She told me that it didn’t feel like scar tissue to her and asked me if it had been imaged. Well, no it hasn’t been. Then she proceeded to tell me that she wouldn’t feel comfortable without me getting a mammogram and an ultrasound. Sigh. I told her that scheduling that would take eons and I have a six month check up in March. She assured me she could get me into a lab right away, which she did.

Mammograms totally remind me of my mom. One of my last normal mornings with Mom was sitting across from her in the kitchen as she flipped pancakes on the griddle and described in great detail about being squeezed and pinched and prodded into the photo box. She waved the spatula around and made faces the whole time. I wondered why she was still having mammograms at 84, but I also kind of laughed at her description, but not too much, because I didn’t want her to realize that I’d never had a mammogram. I would have never heard the end of that. But in the last months I have definitely made up for waiting till I was 48 to undergo the indignities of the squeezing and jabbing. I close my eyes and concentrate on the memory of my mother every single time. It makes the pain a little less.

Ultrasound techs can’t tell you anything other than it’s a boy or a girl. And in my case, it’s definitely not that. I saw the black hole on the screen, but it seemed sort of symmetrical to me and I still think it’s a good possibility that it is scar tissue from the plastic surgery, so I’m not all that stressed. Although, I’d bet money I get called in for a biopsy next week.
I asked the doctor how long of recovery time I’d need when the ovaries do come out. She told me that she thought I could be back to work in two weeks. Two weeks! I was hoping for a year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to be working and I love the people I work with and love the kids. I know I do my fair share of bitching and refer to my students as monsters and pterodactyls. But I get hugs everyday and the kids draw me pictures and write me notes and tell me about their stomachaches and their new toys. And I actually love having clay under my fingernails, and blue paint smeared across my forehead every damn day. But I’m tired. Every single morning I wake up and feel like I’m tied to my bed. And not in a fun way. More like chains are holding me in place. I have to fight loose and get up, put on a happy face and get the party started.

I swear I try to do positive things. I pay my bills, and read books, and walk my dog and pet my cat and go to movies with my kids and share meals with them. I gab with my girlfriends and snuggle with my man. I try to remember the good things about my parents and be grateful for all that they gave me. I try to celebrate that Shayne is off the streets and lucid and ice fishing with friends instead of huddled on the porch in his pajamas afraid of the soul snatcher in the heating vent. I know a lot of people have it way worse than I do. Yet, I’m having such a hard time shaking the darkness that takes me in all kinds of places.

And all this health stuff makes me feel like a used car. You know one thing breaks and you get it repaired then the next week it’s something else. And you either keep throwing band-aids on it till it can no longer move, or you break down and get a newer car. I am sort of wondering about not going to the doctor anymore at all. Ignorance might be slightly underrated. And my real problem isn’t something that can be fixed by a knife or a needle or even a pill.

I think the only thing I can really do is keep getting up every day and doing the very best I can to look for the light.