Vulnerability

     I got a message yesterday from one of my MFA classmates. He’s a funny guy with a hearty laugh and an open style. I remember him telling me once about his experience at Disneyland, inching through the queue at rides like Space Mountain past the warnings aimed at persons with high blood pressure, heart, neck or back problems, alerts enlivened with animation of the impacts one could expect. My friend said by the time he got to the end of the line, he was so freaked out his children were cringing in embarrassment. 

     Today, I got to thinking, I, too, know about being scared at Disney. Disneyland was where I learned what feeling vulnerable means.

     The feelings started a few days earlier when I got the call on the Thursday before Spring Break, the day after my annual mammogram. The caller said it could be a cyst that turned up on my imaging but they wanted me to come back in to make sure. I made the appointment for the next day then walked downstairs and called out to Ron.

     “I’m here,” he said, answering from inside his office. “What do you need?”

     I couldn’t speak. Ron came out and found me on the steps. That was my first moment feeling vulnerable.

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was entering the private waiting room at the Breast Health Center in the ultrasound corridor. It’s a lovely room with calming colors, two comfy chairs and few accoutrements. There’s a framed message of hope on the wall and a box of tissues on the lamp table.

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was lying alone on the table after the ultrasound, awaiting the radiologist’s interpretation. I sat up and turned to look at the half dozen or so images the technician had left on the screen. I saw a black oval spot. I looked away, then looked again. The main spot’s edges seemed smooth, which seemed good. I thought. I hoped. The other spot was muddled or something. I laid back down, then turned and looked again. I stared at the ceiling and practiced breathing. Raised my arms high and outstretched my hands and methodically pulled the tips of my fingers, running my finger pads over my fingernails. It was white noise quiet for a good ten minutes. Soon the radiologist was saying it’s definitely not a cyst and three people are hovering over me and my breast taking tissue samples with a needle-thingy and putting in markers of the areas with something that sounded much like a staple-gun. 

     I said, lightheartedly,  “Wow, I’m getting so much attention.”

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was when no one laughed. No one said anything.

     After the procedure the only question I had was “Could it be nothing.”

     “Sure” the radiologist said in a flat-line way.

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