I enter the breast care center, check in, and take a seat. Though there are few people in the room; there is a sense of dread and trepidation that hangs in the air. It feels almost like a sacred space as I am acutely aware of all the prayers, meditations, and laments that have been spoken in this room whether aloud or silently. I can imagine behests to God, Jesus, Allah, Adonis, and more, some likely in languages I cannot speak yet somehow understand. Woven of angst, sorrow, and trepidation: I imagine them asking for more time, good news.
My name is called and I complete the mammogram: This is year two post-diagnosis.
In the weeks prior to these appointments, I find myself thankful for business at work and home leaving less time to catastrophize about potential results. I consider myself lucky: DCIS stage zero. Though I am aware of the excellent prognosis the arrival of these exams finds me enveloped in unfettered fear at least for a period of time.
After the exam, I am escorted to a smaller room to await the results. The tiny room creates an almost claustrophobic feeling — though it isn’t the walls that appear to be closing in — more my own mind. Anxiety reaches a fever pitch in these little rooms oft reserved for the telling of unwelcome news. I steady myself for what may come, both in the next few minutes, days, months, even years.
Superstition and pessimism do not allow me to expect good news. Rather I begin to grapple with the unknowns. I spit out my prayers in this tiny room each year and I imagine them adding to the cacophony of those before and after me. In this room, there is a more frenetic tone or at least it feels that way. The last two visits my prayers have been answered but I always wonder about others who have shared this space.
I know I will be back the next year and the news may be different but I know that I cannot allow my mind to remain here in this space. So as I walk out I remember to feel the sun on my skin and shed some of the weight the weeks of anticipation have added. Until next year, breast care center.
Courtney Markham-Abedi is a psychiatrist in Lexington, Kentucky. She has written widely about physician suicide and other psychiatric topics for online publications and has appeared on several podcasts, work that led feedspot.com to name her one of the 1,000 best health care journalists and editors.
Her peer-reviewed work centers on the metabolic and neurologic effects of antipsychotic medications, including case reports on a probable association between ziprasidone and worsening hypertension, ziprasidone-induced catatonic symptoms, and hypertriglyceridemia tied to the direct effects of olanzapine rather than to weight gain.
She has also written a novel, Unlocking Lakin, set in a psychiatric hospital in her hometown. The manuscript won first place for full-length prose from West Virginia Writers, and she is currently seeking an agent to represent it.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
