2004-07-17 - 1:39 a.m.
My first time was very scary.. probably one of the scariest moments of my 15-year-old life. I lay there drowning in the indignity of being covered with a paper sheet.. A paper sheet! Can you imagine? They can't even spare a cloth one from the closet.
These are the moments that define you. Your courage during a crisis separates the men from the boys.. Or the women from the breastless women. So that day when some strange woman was fondling my breast, she gave me the ultimate challenge. When she looked at me and said there was an odd growth, she handed me this power. She gave me strength that I never imagined I could posess.. "How can you tell?", I ask.. It all feels lumpy to me. The worst lump being in my throat.
So I make an appointment at the Women's center, even though, at that age I'd scarcely be considered a "woman" by any stretch of the imagination. So there I am sitting in the waiting room flipping through a magazine that could have been 10 years old for all I knew, for all I cared. This tiny woman comes in with a clipboard and calls my name. Her name tag read "Joyce" and had a little smiley face on it. Like I give a rats ass who tells me have a nice day if they're going to also tell me that they have to hack off one of my prized possessions. I remember she was wearing these cute scrubs with monkeys swinging from palm trees on them. I didn't know, then, that 4 years later I'd have a matching set of my very own. They distract me from the task at hand for a brief moment.
I go into a peach colored room complete with the prerequisite wainscoting chair rail. It looked like my mom's kitchen when I was 10. That was supposed to put me at ease. I should have them move me because my mom was a terrible cook and the room just gave me the heebie-jeebies..
She hands me this big paper towel. "Please remove your shirt and bra." I expected a little more warmth.. Didn't they know how old I was?? So, good little soldier that I am, I follow orders and wrap this ridiculous paper sheet around me. Insert arms here, tie here with a plastic cord that looks like it was salvaged out of one of those pull tie garbage bags.
Then the worst indignity of all. Standing there in a paper dress with one breast hanging out, step forward, squish.. oh god. the humiliation. might as well do both while we're here.
So they call me two days later. They say the outcome is "not good" and tell me to make an appointment at the hospital, which I do.
I'm getting used to the paper gowns.. Gowns they call them.. Like I'm going to be the belle of the fucking ball with my breast hanging out. I don't remember a whole lot about being in the waiting room at the hospital. I remember thinking that tits aren't worth it. At that point, I'm still enough of a realist to say "fuck it, I'll get fakers and no one will know."
Onward and upward, as I always say. So this time I'm in a white room with pictures taped up on the ceiling. 5 Breast cancer warning signs to watch out for. Talk about being redundant. And then I'm in. I hate computerized axial tomography. The CAT scan bed is hard as a rock and it smells like vomit and antiseptic. I don't know which was worse. There they are poking prodding, forgetting that in all ways that count, I'm still a child.
All that fear and humiliation for nothing. It was a cyst. That's all. Nothing shocking, nothing to worry about. Too bad they didn't let me know that that was a possibility before scaring the hell out of me. I had already started calling plastic surgeons to find out how much implants were.
I've had three more guided needle biopsies since that day, the most recent being in November. No one knows. I've never told anyone until today. The scars have faded a little. If anyone gets a good look at my cleavage, they're visible. But no one notices so I keep my secret.
I don't want them to worry.
