Last spring I found a rather large lump in one of my breasts. I wasn't deeply concerned about it until it was with me for a month and showed no sign of leaving. Aimee and Terra urged me to go see a doctor, and finally I bit the bullet and made the appointment.
My doctor said that there was 'palpable mass' in my right breast, and wanted me to go for more tests. My usually calm demeanor wavered in the face of something deeper. The reality that something malignant might be growing inside my body disturbed me. But I took her prescription, and made a rather awkward phone call to my insurance company, nervously explaining what was wrong, hating that I had to spell the problem out for a stranger in a cubicle somewhere.
I made my appointment with the sonogram and ultrasound people in a medical office in my town and nervously waited for the appointment.
I had a date with Jefferson that week, this was during the early stages of our friendship, when we were still getting to know one another. And I was wary of expressing anything less that absolute surety and confidence in myself. I didn't want to let on that something could be wrong, so I kept my silence until he started fondling my breasts. The longer this went on, the more uncomfortable I started to feel. I asked if we could stop fucking, and if I could have a glass of water. He left the room, none the wiser.
I started to cry, and I found I couldn't stop. All I could do was sit there, trying to hold in my fears, to stem the flow of tears. Jefferson came back into the room. "What's wrong," he asked, immediately concerned. I shook my head and started crying even harder. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, pulling me back onto the bed. He held me while I cried, patiently waiting until my sobs subsided. "I found a lump in my right breast, and it might be nothing, but it might be something," I said into his chest. "Oh I'm sorry," he said. "It's okay, you didn't know, I don't blame people for not knowing things," I said. "I'm getting a sonogram on Thursday, so I guess I'll find out then."
The next couple days passed easily enough. I fell into my bad habit of googling images of medical problems. I looked for breast sonograms, attempting to build a solid foundation of information, not I was successful.
I went to my appointment that Thursday, nervous and uncertain of what was to come. I undressed in the little changing room, locking away my purse and clothes and pulling on the gown. Walking down the hall, the linoleum was cold against my bare feet and I felt over-exposed and vulnerable.
I walked into the exam room and the technician, a short Mongolian woman, told me to lay back on the table. She felt my breast, looking for the lump, and then squeezed a dollop of jelly onto my boob and rubbed the sonogram reader against it. It was a cold. A strange feeling, foreign and uncomfortable. I looked at her screen, and asked about the black thing I saw at the bottom of the screen. "That's one of your lungs," she replied. I couldn't really tell what I was looking at, only that it bothered me.
Eventually the doctor came in and took over, conferring with the technician. He had a thick German accent and cold blue eyes set in a stern and powerful face. He was a man I would have found terribly attractive if the circumstances had been different. Instead I hated him. I hated that he was so rude and so cold to me. He asked me if he could palpate my breast. I was hesitant, but consented, knowing it was for the best. I had never had a male doctor examine any remotely personal part of me since the age of 5. I hated him for it. I was deeply humiliated without knowing why. He talked some more with the technician about barely discernable shapes on the screen before turning back to me. In his thick accent he told me that it was probably just a swollen gland, and that it should go away anytime between a few days to a few weeks, and just to keep an eye on it.
He left quickly, and the technician handed me some paper towels to clean myself off with. I went back to the room and collected my belongings, dressing in my own clothes, I paid the copay and left, glad to be rid of the place. The lump eventually went away. And life went on.
