Archive for August, 2009
August 31st, 2009 | Author: trancejen
So I had a mammogram on Friday. This was the mammogram that was to replace last week’s mammogram, where I stupidly showed up at the wrong clinic.
I went into the clinic, waited twenty minutes, put on my little cape (a sleeveless cape, in which the girls were most unattractively hanging out the sides), and waited another twenty minutes while flipping through a year-old People and watching the women around me re-adjusting their capes for minimum boob exposure.
Then it was time, and I stood shivering at the machine while the technician smooshed my breasts into all sorts of amazing positions and took pictures.
Once you’ve had something implanted in your chest (the heart monitor, not implants), all of this is no big deal. It’s less than a small deal.
Then I was sent in my drafty little cape to an inner waiting room, where a drafty-caped woman told me all about her husband’s death and her lack of health insurance. People tell me stories all the time. I guess I just have a story-liking kind of face.
I waited another twenty minutes and was then ushered into the hallway by the technician.
“We saw something.”
I just stood there.
“We need to take more pictures.”
I nodded.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film “It’ll just be a few minutes.”
I nodded again, frozen to the spot.
All I could think about was cancer. My mother, who had breast cancer in 1991. My neighbor, who had breast cancer soon after. The chemo. The radiation. The hair loss. The puking. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer.
I didn’t cry. I just sat there, staring at a chart which outlined the five stages of breast cancer. Stage 0 – You’re probably gonna make it. Stage I – good luck to you. Stage II – Not great. Stage III – REALLY not great. Stage IV – You’re fucked.
I read these over and over and over again, trying to breathe, and then the tech called me into the mammogram room.
On the computer screen was a breast, my breast. On that breast was a spot about the size of a dime.
I stared.
“This is the area we’re concerned about. You see?”
I saw.
She took more pictures, contorting my boobs into ever-more-uncomfortable positions, and I tried to breathe. Then she once again led me into the quiet little waiting room to wait.
This is where people get The News, I thought. This is it.
I waited for twenty minutes. I read a Parents magazine, looking at all of the cute, colorful little toddlers. I cracked my knuckles.
Then, a woman called my name. “Jennifer?”
It was a doctor. I almost passed out, sure that I was to be given the worst news of my life.
“You’re fine.”
Dracula movie “WHAT?”
“You’re fine. We didn’t see anything in the new pictures.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes. You can go get dressed now.”
I smiled weakly, briefly thought WHAT THE FUCK, HOW DOES A SPOT DISAPPEAR; and then I started to bawl.
I cried the whole way home, probably scaring my neighbor to death. I cried for an hour after I got home. I don’t know why I cried like this – out of relief? Pent-up anxiety? Sheer emotional overload?
I don’t know, but damn, did I cry.
I don’t think that I should have been told or shown that there was a weird spot until the second round of pictures were taken. I think that this freaked me out unnecessarily, and for no good reason. Personally, I think the technician, while a very nice lady, should have kept her mouth shut until the second set of films came back.
Thankfully, it’s over, but it isn’t over for the millions of women who have had, have, or will have breast cancer. This number includes my mother, my wonderful neighbor, and countless other mothers and sisters and daughters and friends.
Team America: World Police video
My friend Bibliogrrrl, who I have known since high school, recently found out that her mother has Stage I breast cancer.
She is currently raising money for Gilda’s Club Chicago, a wonderful organization that does a great deal for people with cancer and their families. She is also going to shave her head in support of her mother.
If you would like to donate and help her cause, please click bibliogrrlgoesbald, which will take you straight to the donation page.
Please give if you can, and if you would, take a moment to remember those families dealing with breast cancer.
Happy Monday, and thank you.
August 23rd, 2009 | Author: trancejen
My cats have fleas. Now can you possibly tell me how in the hell my strictly-INSIDE cats could get fleas??
I blame the kid from down the street, henceforth to be referred to as “Pigpen”. Pigpen has several outside cats, and I swear to God the little shit brought fleas inside my house and transferred them via his cloud of filth.
The child smells, people. He smells BAD. He smells worse than Shaq’s dirty sweatsocks being steeped in warm urine.
He recently broke a wall in my hallway, if you can believe that. Apparently he leaned into it with his ridiculously chubby self and caused a three-foot crack.
I remain irritated by him, sometimes unreasonably so. The very sound of his voice irritates me beyond measure, but the J-Man really likes him so all I can do is grit my teeth and hold my breath when he walks by.
I am COVERED in flea bites. I seriously look as if I have the smallpox, and so does the J-Man. My mother is completely bite-free, probably due to her sour, cold blood.
I kid.
Anyway, we Frontlined the cats, sprayed the hell out of the entire house with flea spray, and washed the bedding and rugs in hot water. If all of that doesn’t work I’m simply going to burn the house down.
In other annoying news, the doctor has informed the J-Man that he needs to lose twenty pounds.
I knew this. I’ve known this. I’ve been buying fruit in bulk so that he has healthy snacks and I’ve been monitoring his diet, but the fact remains that the child is a couch potato, or more accurately an X-Box/computer potato.
So, we’re exercising. I make him walk on the treadmill for a half an hour every night, and hopefully this will yield great results and also create healthy habits.
I lost fifteen pounds during the month of August and am trying to keep on trucking, so it’s sort of nice that we can do this together.
Barb Wire download Broken Trail download
I had to reschedule my mammogram because I originally showed up at the wrong facility, so boob-squishing is coming up next week. I also have to go to the crotch doctor for a repeat Pap smear because the first one apparently didn’t take.
Thanks a lot, doctor, because I am truly looking forward to repeating that fun-filled and joyous experience. Bring me your cold steel speculum, bring me your K-Y jelly, because I am PUMPED.
Right.
All in all, it’s been a bit of an annoying weekend with all the de-fleaing and Pigpen visits and to top it all off, a visit to the Mart of Wal.
I actually went for an eye appointment, because Wal-Mart’s vision center = CHEAP, but I also had to buy some school clothes for my niece and, embarrassingly enough, a girdle.
Yes, a girdle.
Truly I am either fifty years old or living in the fifties, I’m not sure which.
I need this “shapewear” (nice little euphemism for girdle) because my stomach, ravaged by both a vertical c-section and years of yo-yo dieting, looks rather like a flabby ass.
I know, pleasant imagery abounds on this website.
Anyway, I bought one and squashed myself into it, and damn, I’m looking pretty fine. It’s artifice, but it’s really slimming artifice.
So that’s been my week. Twenty-odd loads of laundry, kicking my kid’s ass to get him in shape, Pigpen, and girdle shopping at Wal-Mart.
Next week can only get better.
Happy Sunday, all. I wish a very happy birthday to my buddy Kevin, who rules.
August 3rd, 2009 | Author: trancejen
I’m going off of the Diet Coke. As much as I will miss its aspartame-laced fizzy goodness and lively shots of pure caffeine, it must be done.
I counted yesterday, and I had NINE. Nine Diet Cokes. That’s just insane, and also expensive.
My goal for today is to only have one.
I cannot even begin to feign an interest in speculating whether or not aspartame is Bad! and Evil! and Possibly Neurotoxic!, but really, should I take the risk that any of those might be true?
Given the fact that my health is pretty much shit, I might as well try to eliminate some of the unnecessary evils.
(Note that I am not talking about cigarettes, which I consider to be a Very Necessary Evil. I will save that cessation for another day.)
I’m prepared for a massive caffeine withdrawal headache, but I’m raring to go. I find water horribly boring, but I’m not going to add Crystal Light or any of that crap both because I’m trying to get off the aspartame and because I need to start to like plain old cheap water.
Mmmmm, water.
I’m trying to talk myself into it.
In other news, the J-Man had a very successful outing with TranceDad yesterday in which he rode go-carts. The kid has had a banner week as far as extracurricular activities go, and now he complains that our house is “completely boring”.
Well, excuse me if I don’t dress up in a cartoon character costume and own my own bouncy house.
The bouncy house part would be pretty cool, though.
The J-Man is going to take guitar lessons. I own a bright red Dean Z that was passed down to me from my dad, and it is delightfully ridiculous-looking. The J-Man plans to rock out like he’s playing Guitar Hero. He doesn’t quite grasp the fact that he first has to learn how to play an axe that doesn’t feature buttons, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m excited for him, plus I think that everyone should learn an instrument.
In still other news, I am going to the Crotch Doctor tomorrow, where I will most likely cry as my hoo-hah is being invaded by sterile steel instruments and try desperately to overcome the urge to kick the interloper square in the face.
Aren’t you glad I keep you abreast of my gynecological adventures?
Sure you are.
Happy Monday.
