What does that look like to you?

Yesterday, I honored the reminder calls, letters and calendar notes all prompted by my doctor’s automated reminders, and went for my mammogram.  My husband decided to go with me.  I told him I didn’t really need this, but it seemed as good a way to spend a little time together as anything, sort of reminiscent of all those pre-baby check-ups, and so there we were, flipping through magazines and newspapers in the basement of the Fabiola building, waiting for my turn. 

The x-ray tech was the same one who did my first mammogram last year, and we have a friend in common, so we chatted, while she positioned and compressed my breasts in the odd sandwiching device.  Then she brought in the films.

She put them up, same as last time, and started talking amiably about fibrocystic tissue (cloudy) vs. fatty tissue (not so cloudy) but I couldn’t listen.  There, in the picture of my left breast, was very clearly a little ball of white– about the size of one of those superballs the kids get in the vending machines for a quarter.  I interrupted her–”Look!  There’s something!”  She smiled and said,”Don’t interrupt!  I’ll get there in a minute.”  Then she explained how the radiologist would look at the x-rays, decide whether to call me in for more, yadayadayada– I couldn’t really focus on what she was saying.

The little white ball looked sort of swirly, like a satellite picture of a hurricane.  “What does that look like to you?” I whispered to my husband.  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” he said back.  I think, I’m pretty sure, he just meant to be reassuring.  I’m convinced I’ll get a call today, telling me to come in for another look.  I know the odds are that it is nothing, a cyst if anything. 

 But I know what I don’t want it to be.  But I wonder– am I really so paranoid, such a hypochondriac, that my eyes would so clearly see a ball in my mammogram that others don’t see?  I keep thinking about a family we’re fairly close to– the mom was so healthy and strong.  She was helping with the costumes for the school play last May, when she told me she had the flu, and felt lousy.  But it wasn’t the flu.  And now her family must go on without her. 

Whatever the ball is or isn’t– I want to hold my little ones a little closer today.  I don’t want to go to work, but I’m going. I’m going to try not to jump out of my skin every time the phone rings.  I’m going to smile at everyone I see.