And now the unexpected biopsy

WEEK 4

Biopsy was furthest from my mind when I came up with my 52×52 project. But with last week’s abnormal mammogram, the day is here, and as I write this post, I’m sober about what could be.

Have I been this nervous before? I remind myself to take deep, calming breaths. All day it’s about breath.

I walk to a work meeting down Beale, across Market Street, through Jackson Square. 90-degree heat already at 11:00am. My breathing is quick, shallow, noticeable. I talk to calm myself.

Later, in the waiting room, I do more deep breathing. Who is this person? I never do this.

The radiologist tells me I need to be a statue on the table during the procedure. A statue who takes mini breaths. So many breaths.

My breast is hanging down through a hole in the table. I feel a hand on it. I am told not to breathe when they take the images. The images are critical to guide the needle. They can’t do this freehand. Of course they can’t. They are looking for grains of sand.

Twenty minutes later it’s over and the samples have been drawn and the nurse has my breast in a vice with her hands to stop the bleeding and help the swelling. We are inches away from each other’s faces talking about what I do next. She is calm. It sounds routine. I say that now as microscopic tissue are on their way to the person who knows how to read them. The person who gives me one of three options.

I am home now. I’ve had dinner and wine and it’s 80 degrees inside the apartment because San Francisco is having a heat wave. My chest is wrapped in an ace bandage.

This is a procedure that is not about the procedure but the information it imparts. Information that could change my life.

Four days later the doctor calls: all benign.

The odds were always on my side—that is what I read. But it was impossible not to consider the downside. Without this test, they cannot rule out cancer. With this test, they can rule in cancer.

I stand in the mirror and speak to my breast again. I know you are still in there, my micro-calcifications as small as sand. Thank you for being gentle and benign.