A Little Thanksgiving Tale (Homage to my Left Breast)
Posted by Debra Solomon Baker on November 23, 2011
“What’re you in for?” I long to ask the other women, the duo sitting across the aisle from me, in their matching pink robes. I want to pry, to compare, to console.
But, no, I just smile at them, a polite smile, a close-mouthed grin, and settle into the floral chair, grey with red and blue swirling flowers, the chair directly across from them. I adjust my robe to be sure that appropriate body parts are concealed. I wonder who, in this labyrinth of a hospital, has authority over the chairs. Who has selected the pattern, and when, as part of a long-range plan or something, are they slated for reupholstering?
It’s time. A solid color would be best. Keep it simple, people.
I yank the tie on my gown tighter, consider a double knot, feeling my 128-pound body lost in all the fabric of the one-size-fits-all costume that the technician has handed to me.
I long for the television to be muted, for a remote to suddenly appear in my hand, a remote without too many buttons, one that I can actually operate without my eleven-year-old son’s guidance. I long for the room to be silenced.
Moments earlier, I had discarded my grey shirt and my off-white bra (not my sexiest ensemble, but it had worked at 6:30 this morning), battled the deoderant under my arms with the little wipes in the canister, even using an extra wipe, to erode all powdery remnants of my Secret Clinical Strength for Sensitive Skin.
For these are the rules. Strip from the waist up. No deoderant.
I had tossed my wipes into the basket, shoved my bra and t-shirt into the plastic bag with Missouri Baptist etched on its side, pulled on a robe, “remember, the opening goes in front”, and tiptoed into the holding area, bag in hand.
So here we are. Three women. Three bras and shirts shoved into bags. Three pink robes. And the deep urge to silence the television, and to ask, “What’re you in for?”
But then, “Come on in,” announces some nurse to one of the two pink robes seated across from me. The other Pink Robe laughs, nervously perhaps, and mentions that the nurse’s beckoning reminds her of Let’s Make a Deal, but “you’re probably too young to remember that,” she says to me. I’m not too young, but I only pretend to know what she means, certain that she has confused her game shows, trying to understand why the nurse’s three simple words are reminiscent of Let’s Make a Deal. I even stoop to agree with her, though I see not even a weak connection.
I remember that it’s the one with two doors, or maybe there were three, I don’t know, but Door Number Something always contained some grandiose prize, like a vacation for two to Hawaii, that sent the contestant squealing and jumping around in her high heels. And, Door Number Whatever, always hid some doozy, like four cans of Alpo with a bag of rawhide thrown in.
So, point to the wrong door, and down you would go. Some poor housewife who had traveled all the way from Kansas to have her 15 minutes of Let’s Make a Deal fame, would fly home with prizes for her yapping mutt. Poor soul. All hope extinguished.
A goddamn crapshoot.
Just like this.
You see, I have failed last week’s mammogram, the only test in life that Ms. Overachiever has failed except some Renaissance Art midterm at The University of Michigan, but, even that, I think was more like a C, not a full-fledged F.
And so, here I am, in this holding area with the hideous floral chairs, with the oversized smock, with absurd visions of Let’s Make a Deal.
In a few minutes, I may find myself with the booby prize, which we all know isn’t really a prize at all. It’s the terrifying C-word, the word that some will only whisper.
I check my Samsung, ignoring the sign that says, “No Cell Phones.” One missed call. From Big Sister. She remembered. She always remembers stuff that everyone else forgets.
Another missed call. Mom has left a voice mail. “Cawl me,” she says in her still-Brooklyn accent. Then, I love you.
I pull at my robe, yet again. I am a puller and a picker, with thirty-year-old acne scars as proof.
It’s my turn. The technician leads me back, highlights the screen with, whoa, there it is, my left breast. An X-ray. She points to a cluster of white lines that have infiltrated, crashed the party, if you will, arrived uninvited. As best as I can tell, with new photographs, we’ve got to figure out if they’re hoodlums, or if they will skedaddle on their own.
There’s no family history. People get called back for repeat mammograms all the time. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Yes. Yes. Yes. But…
Don’t fail me now, Left Breast. Remember how I begged you (and your friend, Ms. Right Breast) when I was thirteen to grow, grow, grow because that seemed to be the key to getting Howie Adler to notice me? You stayed puny and, even though I’d read Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret and knew Margaret’s “We-Must, We-Must, We-Must Increase our Bust” Miracle Grow exercises, no, you didn’t comply. Small you stayed.
The machine clamps my breast in a way that could not be more unnatural, I hold my breath, as instructed, hold still, click, click, release. Another position. Hold your breath. Click. Click. Release. Another. Another.
She examines the new left breast montage.
“Well, I will show these to the radiologist, but I suspect he is going to want to take more pictures, and probably an ultrasound,” she declares.
Apparently, the white lines haven’t fled.
Translation: Debra, you are doomed.
Damn you, Left Breast. Remember how those militant breastfeeding La Leche Ladies, insisted that I needed to, “Just keep pumping. Just keep pumping,” singing it to me as if it were a blessed mantra? You can do it! You can do it! Remember how I pumped and pumped and pumped and you squirted out enough milk to feed a newborn gerbil? Remember how I drank gallons of water and popped those crazy Fenugreek herbal pills “which sometimes enhance milk production” someone had told me, and how Max had still screamed for more, more, more? Did you work with me then, Left Breast? No. Remember how I sobbed because all the other moms at the playground would just whip out their breasts and be in what seemed like breastfeeding nirvana? But not me. Nope. I had to whip out the Enfamil canisters, which might as well have been poison, in my you’re-no-good, new mother mind. Remember, Breasts, how much you disappointed me? Made me feel less of a mother? Less of a woman?
You owe me.
“I need to know how much longer I’m gonna be here because I have to be somewhere, umm, to pick up my daughter,” I announce to the technician. Control. Control. Control.
Figure about an hour, she says. She looks glum, or maybe that’s just my paranoid interpretation.
I sit, yet again, on my floral chair in the holding area. Pink Robe Lady is still there.
An hour. I will miss Sarah’s Girls on the Run celebration in her school library, for it ends, yes, in an hour. She will search for me, amid the other moms, and she will be disappointed, but will later say that it was okay, Mommy, that she understands that I can’t be at everything.
And, I will get killer news. Chemotherapy. Radiation. The whole shebang.
Life is gonna change. And I’m not so not ready for this ride.
I breathe. And breathe. And fight tears. Not here, Debra. Not now. Not in this room. Not with this woman with the pink robe. Just wait. For once, just wait. Think about something funny, something downright hilarious. But, I can’t.
And then, just as I am about to unleash the rainstorm, the door opens and behind the door, there is this….
“Ms. Baker?”
“Yes.”
We’ll see you in a year. You’re fine.”
Fine? But I thought…But that other lady said…But I imagined….
“You’re fine.”
Are you sure? You must have me confused with some other lady in a pink robe.
Door #1. Wide open.
I won.
I want to hug her and tell her about how my mom and my sister both called, both remembered, both love me so much, and about how my colleague, Erin, said she’d pray for me, even when I admitted that I’m not even sure I believe in prayer, but she didn’t care, she said that she’d pray anyway. And about how my principal, Mary Ann, had hugged me hard before I left school today. And I want to tell her about my two beautiful children and how Max has been eating Life cereal every morning since he was three, and how he wants me to start reading The Diary of Anne Frank along with him, and how he never gives up hope, even when the Cardinals are down by 18 runs, and about how Sarah just learned her very first song on the violin, Twinkle, Twinkle, and how she and I have this game where she says, “I love you”, and I say, “I love you more”, and she says, “Not possible” and I say, “Possible” and on and on. I want to tell this nurse how thankful I am for my little Group Health Plan card that I can just yank out of its slot in my wallet whenever I need it, and for this morning’s four-mile run and for my writing (of vignettes like this) because they clear my cluttered brain and help me make sense of this crazy world.
Yes, I want to hug this woman, this woman with the news, and tell her how amazing it is that I didn’t get a load of dog food behind my door, but, instead, received this prize, this glorious prize.
And, as I head out the door of Missouri Baptist, I shout Hallelujah to you, my left breast, because, nope, you didn’t fail me. Not this time. You were magnificent, the way you tackled that bully and pinned him down and showed him, snap, snap, exactly who is the boss around here.
Amen, Sistah.
I am one lucky woman.
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