Posted by Friday on March 28th 2009 to
Journals I’ve been half-heartedly househunting for several months now, and seriously looking for a couple of months. About a week ago, I finally went to visit the one house I’ve had bookmarked for a long, long time (its initial listing was out of my price range, but the price has dropped twice since then)… and it was practically perfect. Trying as hard as my critical little mind could, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Visions of Friday’s Freehold danced in my head. I tried to imagine myself actually living there.
But first, I had to find out if I was going to be living anywhere.
As either of my readers may recall, I turned 40 last year. Forty is the recommended age for American women to start having annual mammograms. I could have had one a couple of years ago; my physician wrote me a referral. But first I procrastinated. Then I dawdled. After that, I dragged my foot for a bit. Before you knew it, I’d been 40 for a while, and still hadn’t actually done it. Of course, the stories I’d heard from other women didn’t exactly make me eager to go and get my knockers nuked. That, and the knowledge that I am at above-average risk in a few different ways, combined with a reliable tendency to see the cloud in any silver lining, made me hesitant to go. But I finally bit the bullet (gee, if mammograms had existed in pioneer times, do you think they really would have given women bullets to bite on?) and scheduled it.
It really wasn’t all that bad, when it finally came down to it. Of course, the nurse who told me she expected me to be “delighted” by the experience was clearly high and under no circumstances should have been operating radioactive machinery.
Two days later, I got a call at work. “Um, yeah, there’s an “irregularity”. We’d like you to come back. Are you available in… two weeks?”
Two WEEKS?!! I have to wait that long to find out whether I’m going to live or die? Well, obviously I’m going to die, sometime, but… two weeks??
Thus began two of the longest weeks of my life. Since I have no sisters, my mother hasn’t called me yet this year, and my inability to maintain cordial relations with, well, anyone, is fairly well-documented, I discussed this with no one. I only even mentioned it to two people, in both cases because it sort of randomly came up in conversation, and they have kind hearts. They both had received similar phone calls, and in both cases it had turned out to be nothing, and they both told me not to worry. So I didn’t. NOT.
Finally the fateful day came. The nurse (a different one) nuked me. Then I had to wait, with my heart pounding in my probably cancer-riddled chest. Then she nuked me again. And I waited some more. I could feel the onset of metastatis. Then she took me to another room, where a different nurse lubed me up and then ran one of those things they use to take photos of fetuses around for a really, really, really long time, while silently staring intently at a video monitor. Then I was left alone to wait some more. At this point, I was trying to decide to which charitable organization to leave all my worldly possessions. Then a doctor and another nurse came in, applied more lube, did more ultrasonic stuff, and declared me…… fine. <.......exhale.......>
So, um, yeah. I’m gonna live! In New Hampshire! The next day, I told my realtor I wanted to make an offer on that house.
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