Stick it!

Needles don't really bother me. They used to. When I was a kid and was sick and we were in the car on the way to the doctor, my first question was always, "Am I going to get a shot?" The desired answer, of course, was "No, of course not." I never heard that from my mom. I'd get back, "Probably." If Dad was taking me, he'd put me off with the usual "Hmn. Don't know." But as we climbed the stairs to the doctor, he'd promise me that he'd buy me some candy if I didn't cry when I got the shot. Aha! There was going to be a shot. I started crying on the stairs, and went home with candy in my clutches (there was a drugstore downstairs, thank heavens). If I tried that on Mom, I got the old "knock-it-off look". Obviously, I preferred when Dad took me to the doctor. But those were devices of torture in those days. Impossibly long needles kept in a pedal-opening steam cabinet. The doc would hit the pedal, the lid would slowly rise and steam came hissing -- honestly, it hissed -- out of the cabinet When the mist cleared, there they were, all neatly lined in rows. Needles that looked like flame-throwers. Candy worthy? You betcha!

Now, they're so sharp and thin I never even feel them. Maybe they're not. Maybe I've got a tough hide, but in any event, they don't bother me. And for this biopsy, I already knew what the results were going to be, so this was a rather non-stressful part of the process as well. The nurses were nice. The doctor had a sense of humor. Wisecracks were flying. He biopsied about 5 sections. I asked how big the tumor looked to be and he said 4 cm. I was never a fan of the metric system, so I asked for a translation. About 2 to 2.5 inches. Oh. That's kind of chunky, isn't it. No wonder it made its presence known. While a smaller lump is more desirable, considering how long it had been since I had a mammogram, I was considering myself lucky that it was big enough to make itself known to me. They'd have the results for me the next day. I could bring my husband in with me. I decided that was a good idea. I'd been so emotionally detached about this whole thing so far, maybe I'd better have him with in case I imploded.