A Lifesaving Test
Many know the drill. You show up for your appointment and check in.
The medical receptionist holds a plastic wristband and asks me to confirm the information. Today, it’s one test I’m sure to ace. That is, if I can get close enough to read it. Leaning awkwardly over the reception desk like a wobbly ballerina, I see my name. It's correct. So too my birthdate, even though my present vulnerability makes my adult age seem impossible.
My eye lands on a photograph taped to the cubicle. It’s a cat with their paws daintily crossed. I’m not a cat person, but I’m charmed, welcoming the momentary distraction from the mission at hand. The bracelet’s secured around my wrist and I’m asked to take a seat. The initial wait is brief. My name is called by someone with a smile and I follow them to learn my fate.
It’s requested I undress in a curtained cubicle from the waist up. I'm handed a paper bag to store my clothing. I could use the available lockers with combination locks, but as someone who regularly forgets their own passwords, I opt for the bag, lest I don't get my clothes back.
One of the many kindnesses I’ll be shown this day is in the blue johnny top taken straight out of a warming cabinet. It’s comforting to put on. I’m reminded to tie in the front and do so with purpose.
In the waiting room, I sit amongst women. Beautiful women. Old and young, all clothed in blue. It is a sanctum. These women are priestesses under wraps, matriarchs and daughters of their families, all warriors meditating in preparation for potential battle. Each has different lives outside this room, and yet, for this discrete occasion, we are connected to each other in a suspended cosmos of sisterhood.
There’s not a magazine in sight. Perhaps they went the way of the pandemic, stripped from the room to prevent the sharing of things touched. It helps create this otherworldliness that there’s only me and these women on a voyage of silent communion.
Whenever staff enters, I look up in expectation. Not so much a “pick me, pick me,” but more an acquiescing to the task at hand. Another woman is called, she takes a deep breath, gathers her things and follows a gracious guide into the unknown.
I become aware of the bromidic background music obviously streamed from some easy-listening station. The genre surely must be a misnomer. There’s nothing easy about the Eagle’s greatest hits played as if this uncertainty were taking place in an airport lounge with the worst piano bar ever. For distraction, I make a game of name that tune, noting the station has moved onto murdering James Taylor singles. As the lyrics, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain” cross my mind, the door opens again. This time it is me.
I grab my paper bag, noting my bra is carefully tucked underneath my shirt. I wonder why I hid it? Why this part of our bodies has been hoisted, ranked, and mistreated our whole lives? Not just by the bra, but by society itself.
Nodding to the other women in solidarity, I offer a silent benediction for their own journeys, and follow my technician to the procedure that lies ahead.
Like many women, I’ve experienced the relief of benign news. Like many women, I’ve sat in a small room and heard the opposite. Just recently, there was a possibility of recurrence. This time, the biopsy was negative. I’m to return in six months. I am grateful beyond words, but I can’t stop thinking of my sisters in blue. In the October month of pink ribbon awareness, I’m reminded of them along with the gifted people in our very own Breast Care Center who magnify care into a super-powered verb with their every interaction.
When I learned that breast in Old English means “the seat of the emotions,” it caused me to reassess how I want to experience this lifesaving test. As the imaging technology compresses my body to inspect my innermost tissue, I want to look into myself as well. Surely this “seat of emotions” is wanting a peace treaty with my own body. After all, I am tired of requiring more of it. I’m exhausted from holding my image up to the lens of pop-culture (or others) for affirmation. Instead, I’ll look to the sisterhood in blue to remember that we are all beautiful warriors.
IN MUSING by Carole Vasta Folley
has won awards from
The Vermont Press Association,
The New England Newspaper & Press Association,
and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.