Saturday, June 18, 2011

It's my Surveillance-versary!

So, I just realized, it's nearly July.  July to many people is Independence Day, summer vacation, barbeque's, camping, 90 degree weather, boating, ridiculous air conditioning bills.  To me July is my annual mammogram. 

My annual mammogram also marks the completion of the first year in my life as a high risk woman.  So I survived year one.  With me I take at least 12 self breast exams, an uninformed negative test result, one tiny scar on my right boob, a lead marker near said scar, nearly $1,5000 in related bills and enough tears shed to flood the entire Metropolitan area.

And, because my first MRI (aka, January) came back with an area of suspicion that needed to be biopsied, I need to run the MRI again.  Hopefully on the same day.

The average person may not think this deal sounds so bad; 2 tests a year, 6 months apart and a doctors office visit in between.  What the average person doesn't realize is I finally feel like I got my head back on straight again.  I don't think about my status weekly, daily, hourly, any longer.  I wasn't researching everything boob related.  I stopped dreaming up my eventual PBM or RX.  I stopped practicing the speech I would have to give my friends, family and co-workers. 

But now.  Now that July is staring me straight on, I feel the beginning pangs of dread, of terror coming back.  They get caught in my throat late at night.  They subconsciously make my hands linger longer over my breasts suspicious of every change.  They haunt me.  They whisper to me.  They follow me.  It's a disease you can't see, that dread.  And it's back, just like it promised.  Six months later.

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