So I have to confess that my doctor sending me for followup testing re: that spot on my breast quite freaked me out. And if you googled my symptoms, you would not find the nicest breast cancers to be scared of (evidently there are 14 different kinds). And did you ever get the email forward about the totally rare breast cancer that has totally benign-seeming symptoms and isn’t generally found by mammograms or ultrasounds and then it kills you? Googling cancers puts you in an ugly emotional state. Just saying.

But having someone you can talk to rocks. And having someone you can talk to who will stand up to you when you are being crazy and say, “just go for the damn test instead of being crazy,” and then who will offer to go with you also rocks. So that is what I did – only I was actually fine with going alone when it came down to it.

I tried to go for the ultrasound on Friday and they looked at the requisition and said, “we can’t see you today. We can make an appointment for you and Monday is the earliest we can do.” And so I took the Monday appointment, but I was confused because I’ve gone for SO many ultrasounds before and it’s seriously never needed an appointment. It’s just: in, stripped, gelled, wanded, dressed, done. But when I went in today I learned that the reason they’d put me off was because instead of an ultrasound I was getting a (SURPRISE!!!) mammogram.

Those things are not pleasant. Boy.

She said, “squished,” and I said, “so I’ve heard,” and she said, “oh, not that bad.” And then I said, “mmph. Ow, guy.”

I mean, it wasn’t so terrible because I would go again. Obviously. Like if it were going to save my life or whatever. I submit to internals every year too, don’t I? Still.

Anyhow, it seems like they didn’t find anything because the technician kept saying, “good. good.” and nodding approvingly at…uh… my chest. And then they said I should sit in the waiting room until they’d had a look at the images in case they needed to look more thoroughly at anything. But then they just sent me away.

I was pretty impressed that the clinic could just make the call that an ultrasound wasn’t accurate enough and make it a mammogram instead. I think my doctor, a little bit, was like, “this is so minor and you’re not old enough for routine mammograms so we’ll send you for the easy test.” And the mammogram technician said, “any breast concerns, if you’re over 30, we give you a mammogram because ultrasounds give a lot of false positives and false negatives.” Dealing with the Canadian health care system is so easy.

And that was my day.

And now I have a million neglected tasks to go stare forlornly at, while I eat ice cream and accomplish none of them.