Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.

Miguel de Cervantes

My annual mammogram took less than 15 minutes. The lovely young technician, knowing my history, smiled brightly at me and gave me the words we all love hearing, “We’ll send you a notice in the mail with the results.”  This generally means, “Everything is fine, we’ll see you in a year.” (Of course, for me, this means in six months I will be lying face down in the MRI tube as the machine scans my dangling breasts. My eyes are always shut tight but I imagine this must be quite an enticing sight.)  I smiled back, “Well, this means it all looked good.”  So we’re all smiling and I go home and proudly post my status on Facebook.

Flash forward to four days later as I sit at my desk attempting to organize and, as is popular these days, “de-clutter my space.”  The phone rings but I don’t pick it up because I really don’t want to talk about cleaning my carpets or adjusting a mortgage I don’t have, I am busy with clutter.

Whoa ..what a minute, it’s the imaging center …pick up the phone … “we need more images of your left breast.”  In an instant, my heart is beating and I feel like I have been punched in the gut.  Is it happening again …?

This is the sister of the breast that had Triple Negative Breast Cancer 7 years ago. She has her own lumps and bumps and is thickening in new places. I have been watching her with interest for awhile.  After making the appointment for another mammogram the following day, I spend time exploring her, searching for what may lurk beneath her surface.

That sinking feeling, memories and images flood into my consciousness and I do my best to hold back the tide of fear. I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years but this time feels different.  I am scared.  My husband is scared. This really sucks!

For 24 hours I live with the possibility that I may be taking another trip down this road.  I try not to think that way, but I do.

And then,different from the diagnosis seven years ago, I begin to think about myself. For the first time, I allow myself to feel my own losses, my regrets over what I will miss if I die now, that it will be me who will lose. It will be me that becomes a memory that will fade over time. There will be so much that i won’t get to do or see or experience.  I allow myself to feel  compassion for myself.

12 hours later I was squeezed and twisted into the best imaging machines currently available and a doctor who is one of the people on the planet most familiar with my breasts gave me the “all clear.”  I got a reprieve.

I feel deeply grateful. I am once again humbled by what we, as cancer survivors, go through as we get tested and re-tested. We are always waiting for the results. And sometimes, that’s really scary.