First, my boobs were squashed like pancakes in a digital mammography machine. They were squashed from the front and squashed from the side and when the squashing was done, I was called back for more. The doctor wanted to see additional images of my high-risk breasts, so the tender little things were flattened again, and again, so more shots could be snapped. It hurt, all that squeezing. It didn’t hurt as much as breast cancer hurts but still, it hurt.
Next was my ultrasound, a painless but messy test that involves loads of gel dripping from my breasts and a wand that travels every inch of skin in search of suspicious stuff. A few questionable areas popped up but were quickly dismissed. No breast cancer, according to that ultrasound. And the mammogram too.
A breast MRI rounded out my morning — I spent about an hour sliding in and out of a tube, IV in my arm, boobs dangling toward the floor through openings on a table, buzzing sounds blaring in my ears — and while I don’t yet know the results of this humbling experience, I am confident everything is A-OK. It has to be. I’m not sure I could handle it any other way.
Joey asked me about cancer last night before he went to sleep. I think it was an attempt at delaying bedtime—he often asks very serious questions at this inopportune time, knowing it will be hard for us to deny him an answer.
Today, I ran two miles for Bob, my grandfather who passed away from cancer just recently. My sister ran too. And so did Joey, my six-year-old who announced just before the Gator Gallop—the kick-off to the University of Florida Homecoming parade—that he’d be racing. I think he liked the idea of pinning a race number on his shirt, and he loved the prospect of wearing a sign on his back stating, “This is for you, Bob!”
Today, I ran 3.2 miles in Gainesville’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event.
