One Lump or Two?
By: Marilyn Flower
Tags: Health, Women, Cancer, Satire, Humor

Or is that mission impossible?

I think not. If there is a humorous underbelly, I am determined to find it.

The affected area, just the left breast, is still above my belly, thank God. But gravity is not their friend if you get my drift. They, both my girls, are drifting in a southerly direction.

Fortunately, one of the blessings of losing weight is they’ve shrunk a bit — less of them to sag.

Now having been many sizes, I have a theory regarding getting a mammogram. The smaller you are, the more it hurts.

However, my first one hurt the most, and I was — and they were — much bigger than we are now. Mainly from the shock and surprise, not knowing ahead of time what to expect.

I thought they’d brought back the Spanish Inquisition.

My girls were squished to within an inch of their existence. Literally. Maybe even a half-inch. Amazing how they can turn into pancakes with enough pressure. Fortunately, it takes only seconds to zap us. But still.

This recent time, the squeezing didn’t hurt too bad, but the technician, bless her heart, scraped the underside of my left breast along the edge of the machine, leaving quite a bright red abrasion.

Murphy’s Law seems to be going on — if something can go wrong, it probably will. That was the side that had to be re-zapped due to something called calcification.

Aha! This is where my calcium’s going!

See, I have osteoporosis, and my bones are losing density — leaching vital minerals needed for strength. Where do they go? Where are they hiding?

In the left boob! Gotcha!

Hey guys, go back to my bones where you’re sorely needed. Please.

This is like the world hunger issue. There appears to be plenty of food. Indeed, restaurants and stores throw out tons of it. And sometimes farmers burn grain they can’t sell. So it’s not about availability. It’s a distribution problem.

Houston, I’ve got a distribution problem. Runaway calcium. I take 1000 units a day. For my bones, not my boobs. Get with the program, will ya? Otherwise, why bother, right?

So on Friday, I get to have what’s called a stereotactic biopsy. That’s a fancy word for image-guided. Meaning they use mammographic X-rays during the procedure to pinpoint the exact spot to be sampled.

The nurse practitioner showed me my X-ray. She pointed to the spot that needs to be sampled. For the life of me, I could not see what she was pointing to. It was an area mostly grey-black. The little white spots were elsewhere on the image.

Go figure! I guess you have to have X-ray vision to read X-rays. My vision is only 2020, and that’s just been since January.

I enjoyed meeting with the nurse practitioner.

She must have drawn the short straw, but she did a nice job. Very matter of fact, but not rushed. She emphasized that the stats are in my favor, with a 75% chance it will turn out benign.

She even wrote a big 75% on one of the many papers she gave me. I appreciate that. My hyperactive mind needs something concrete to focus on.

She explained the set up for Friday: I will lay on my tummy on a table with a hole in it for my left breast to poke down through. They will raise me up and work underneath me with the machinery.

I shared with a friend that it’s like putting the car on a hydraulic lift while the mechanics underneath do the oil change and lube. But my friend’s mind went to the image of someone milking a cow. She’s an animal lover, so I’m not surprised.

But it won’t be milk; it will be a tissue sample aspirated through a needle.

Now there are two kinds of needles. The first one is called fine-needle aspiration. That’s preferable. So, of course, I get to have the other one, called core needle biopsy.

Who are they kidding? I’ve had penicillin shots!

Those are some thick mother needles. They honkin’ hurt! But they don’t want us to worry the way we might if they called them what they really are — barely there thin needle and lights flashing ultra-wide thick needle.

Fortunately, I will have Lidocaine.

Not sure how thick that needle will be, but I’ve had it for skin cancer biopsies and dental procedures. I’m not worried about pain so much as being able to hold still on the table for them.

I need something to distract me for about thirty minutes. I’ll ask them if they’ve heard any good jokes or have any relating to their work. I’ll see what I can suck out of them while they’re sucking tissue out of me. That’s only fair, right?

If we get any good ones, I’ll let you know!