Well now, looking back, I should’ve seen this coming…
I still don’t have a paying job, but I still have my health insurance. I suppose that’s something, considering what’s ahead.
But lately, I had been feeling pretty good. I passed my insurance licensing exam, and was told that I could start training to speak at presentation seminars. I’ve got 89% percent in my online math class towards my Accounting Bachelor’s Degree, which is good considering how deeply I hate math. I belong to two writer’s groups, and my novel is coming along okay, and I’ve just started up a new fan fiction piece I’m excited about.
Some of you might remember that I posted about receiving an unsolicited mammogram referral from my doctor. Well, I kept the appointment, and thought no further about it.
Now, I’ve just gotten a letter that the hospital wants to do a “diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound”.
Happiness, well equanimity anyway, comes to a screeching halt. Sheer stark terror begins. The quiet kind of terror, no screaming, no crying, very dignified, very adult terror. It’s the kind of terror that sits in the back of your mind saying things like “It’s probably nothing,” “This stuff happens all the time,” “I got dense breasts, they probably just need a closer look to be sure I’m okay.”
It’s the same kind of terror I had when my blood platelet count was too high, and they wanted to test my bone marrow for leukemia. It’s the same kind of terror I had when I had to be tested yet again for too much calcium in my blood, which can mean cancer too, but they wouldn’t tell me what kind. Just like this letter only says I need “diagnostic tests”, not saying what they found on the screening. Did the first picture just come out funny, or blurry, or is there a whopping big tumor eating away at my chest like the creature from Alien? (I always did admire John Hurt in that scene.)
I’m scared, but I’m tired too. I’m just so tired of shit falling out of the sky just when I think I might be getting a handle on things. Now, comes the doctor’s visits and the tests and all the emotional turmoil that goes with it until they find out like before that it’s nothing to worry about…
…or they find out that I really am sick with this thing.
I’m just so tired of my life’s endless descents into hell. It never even tries to ascend into heaven anymore.