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Super Secret Agent Spy

I am a writer. First and foremost, I am a writer. I have my MFA/BFA in Writing the CK School of Authors Program. Right? He he he. After struggling for weeks to come up with something funny and witty, all I can say is that I'm a 34 year old, happliy married, unmedicated bi-polar II, living in Char...

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Cystem of a Breast

If my breast ever painted a ceiling, we would call it's master piece the Cystine Chapel.

 If my breasts were ever male actors, they would be called Jeremy Cysto.

Any similarly breasted women out there are called my cystas.

If I could see the future in my left breast, would I call it a Cystal Ball?

Are the appearance and subsequent removal of these annoying masses cystamatic?

Okay, I'll stop with the puns. Two Thursdays from now, I'll be visiting the Hollings Cancer Center here in Charleston, South Carolina. There, I will have my one-bajillionth ultra-sound and mammogram on my troublesome left breast. Actually, since it's been two years since my last mammogram, they're probably going to poke, prod and squeeze both of my breasts. . .you know, since I'm going to be standing there mostly-naked anyway. No matter what the scan results are, I am scheduled to have surgery an hour later to remove this odd little knot in the no-man's land between my left breast and armpit.

As annoyed as I am at my breasts for sending me on what will surely be another wild goose-chase, I am thankful that it has never been anything more than a cyst invading my breasts (also known as "mah bewbs").

"Mah bewbs" and I have been on this roller coaster for a decade. Beginning in my early twenties, I started feeling little marbles shapes here and there in my breasts. I'd go to a physican, who would feel me up and tell me that I had what they call “ropy breasts”, they’d look at them through an ultra sound and either tell me they'd be fine or indicate that I needed an "aspiration" or a biopsy. 

Every time I was sent for a mammogram, I'd start fighting for control of horrible, panicky, negative feelings.

"Did I have cancer?"

"Would my boyfriend/husband/family/friends still love me when all of my hair feel out during chemo?"

"Would I never need chemo? Would it just be too late?"

I know. It's silly of me to have gone off the deep end that way. However, both of my grandmothers battled breast cancer, so I always felt like I was playing hide-and-seek with the disease.

My maternal-grandmother fought it with chemo and won. She's now six years in the clear and we are thankful daily.

My paternal-grandmother was not so fortunate. She died from the disease when she was only in her 50's. It broke the family’s heart and wrecked my father. It was one of only three times that I have ever seen him cry. So, when I used to get all riled up about it, I'd think only of her death and not my other grandmother's hard fought victory. During the panic hour, it was so easy to forget the positive and focus on the most disastrous outcome possible. It's a horrible, scary, terrible feeling that would just bear down on me for the eternity in between the scheduling of the appointment and the actual appointment itself.

By the time each verdict was read, I'd be a basket case.

Each time, I would laugh and shake my head at myself, asking how silly I could be. Because each time, it was. . .nothing. Cysts. Same old cysts. And I would be relieved.

Until recently, I've been through periods of complete and utter apathy about the newest, latest of lumps. By now, I've been poked, prodded and yes, stabbed in the chest with a needle more times than I can count.

I think the turning point was an episode involving an older, male physican (expected), his nurse (expected) and two of his male medical students (not expected); one of whom was terribly good looking (REALLY not expected), the other, even better looking and smiling (not expected and not enjoyed.) all filed into the exam room. Yes, they all charged right into an exam room, where I lounged, draped in one of those horrid, ill-fitting hospital gowns with the back in the FRONT so my poor "bewbs" could be accessed freely.

The kindly doctor felt me up, squeezed and prodded. To my absolute horror, he said "Alright, I want you two to feel this right here. This is a . . ." his words trailed off as I disappeared into some kind of alternate, imaginary universe. You know. . .one where I wasn't getting gang-groped by a couple of newbie doctors and their nefarious leader? Yah. . .one where gummy bears fell from the sky and Twizzlers sprouted like wisteria vines wrapped around trees of chocolate bark. . .a river of Diet Coke. . .and. . .

"Now, Amy, you can watch up there on the screen if you wish."

"What?"

Dr. Nefarious was speaking to me. "You can look up there on the screen and watch as I guide this needle through your breast tissue and aspirate that large cyst that's giving you so much trouble."

First of all, I much preferred to be back in Gummy Bear Land. Secondly, was he telling me that he and his two henchmen were going to stab me in the chest with a needle while his nurse. . .his FEMALE nurse. . .stood idly by and did nothing to help me? Shouldn't she be calling the cavalry right about now? I looked to her, puzzled. She looked back at me and smiled and offered to hold my hand.

I didn't bother to answer. I just took a deep breath and huffed as cute-baby-doctor number one numbed me up in preparation for what was to come. He smiled and said "You won't feel a thing."

Hmph. MEN. Look, I know he was trying to be nice, but seriously. . .I wondered if any one of the members of this unholy trinity had ever been stuck in the chest with a needle.

It was at that moment that I realized their definition of "needle" and my definition of "needle" were two completely opposite ideas. Dr. Nefarious came at me with something that looked like a hollow nail stuck into the end of a turkey baster. Fear must've been very present on my face, because I received a nice, patronizing "There, there."

Much to my relief, cute-baby-doctor-number-one was right. I didn't feel a thing. I finally opened my eyes again and looked up at the monitor that showed exactly what was going on in my body. It was amazing. Fascinating!

And then. . . "Hmmm. . .what's this?" Dr. Nefarious found yet another large cyst, hiding behind the original and now deflated target. For some reason, it seemed like a good idea to allow him to go after it, too.

Unfortunately for me, that cyst resided on the other side of some magical band of tissue that was painfully stronger than the skin and fatty tissue that made up the outer portion of my breast.

He pushed.

(I whimpered. It hurt.)

He grunted.

(I inhaled sharply and held my breath.)

He pushed some more.

(I whimpered some more. It hurt some more.)

And then. . . AN AUDIBLE POP.

I broke into a cold sweat, the room got a little fuzzy and I closed my eyes. I don't remember much after that other than an apology for the second aspiration taking so long, a pat on the back saying that I was done, and shy waves good-bye to the two student doctors. I wore an ice pack on my breast for an hour afterwards. It was not fun. I was sore for three days.

Ever since then, there hasn't been much they can throw at me that shakes me up too terribly. I've had quite a few uneventful aspirations and biopsies since then and I find myself lulled into a state of utter nonchalance about the whole thing. . . Until now.

I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the latest appearance of this seemingly inconsequential mass. My (fabulously-amazing) general physician, Kathy, insists that this absolutely does not feel like "a cancer lump." The feel of it, though, does puzzle her since it is not typical of my commonly occuring cysts (many of which we do nothing about). She's ordered it removed immediately after my ultrasound and mammogram. We'll see what it brings.

There's no sense in me worrying about it until I have something to worry about. I certainly don't need to be getting cycsterical about it, do I? Besides, there's no sense in making a mountain out of a lump in a molehill. . .right? :)

xoxo