Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Facing the Wave-breasts-first!

I have read a lot more Buddhism since my friend, Natalia, died of breast cancer. She had me read to her in her final hours from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and things that happen at times like that stick with you, forever. One thing that struck me is that Buddhism, or at least the way Westerners talk about it, use a lot of surf and water metaphors. That resonated for me -- since I love to surf.

I read a fair amount since her death--because I felt scared when she died. I was not ready. My spiritual house is not in order. I need to figure out what it is I believe and how I want to live and how (emotionally) I want to die. The rest I cannot control. But that I can.

One thing Buddhism demands is that you live awake. That you are totally in the moment--not thinking about the past or the future. It is about turning and facing the wave. When something scary and terrifying and horrible and maybe even exciting is racing toward you, do NOT turn your back, do not run. Turn around, look at it, size it up, take it on. That is the only way you will survive. That is the way to get through it.

I am a procrastinator. I face real waves. I know how to do that. I know how to go over the top and dive through. I know how to go under and escape the rough water. But the psychic waves are harder. I run. I close my eyes. I look away and try to pretend they are not happening. And like real waves, they knock me off my feet and pound me in the surf.

So I am trying to be better. From the big things to the small.

Today I went to get my annual mammogram. For me the issue is now so loaded I am practically quaking by the time I walk through the door of the imaging center. It does not help that the place I go-- the Beverly Tower Women's Center -- is cold, institutional and matter-of-fact. On top of that, a woman my age went there with a lump she was worried about, they told her she was fine, and a year later she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer--in the exact spot she had asked them to look at. Young women are hard. Our breasts are dense.

Still. You go in, they squeeze your breasts this way and that. Not tenderly like a lover, matter of factly and coldly. Like a meat cut. (Although the technicians tend to be the most human and kind.) You get all these photos taken, and a few weeks later you get a letter in the mail--formulaic and impersonal--telling you you are fine, or that you are not.

Last year they found something strange in me. Not a lump, but fibrousness. They told me to come back in 6 months (all in an impersonal letter, in difficult to understand medical language and no way to talk to the doctor or ask questions). My OB was aggressive--she is awesome--and sent me to a breast specialist at Cedars. I was so upset at that point that I started crying hysterically in the hallway and a white-coated woman ushered me into a small, windowless (soundproof?) room full of boxes of kleenex where I could cry freely. They were afraid I would send other semi-hysterical women over the edge, too, I am sure.

In the end I got an MRI--terrifying--and everything was OK. Needless to say I was not excited about going again.

Today I went. I faced the wave. I got the mammogram. I got the ultrasound. And today the Doc who signs off on the impersonal letters actually came out and talked to me. What a difference it makes. They gave me an ultrasound just to be sure. All clear. They told me so on the spot. I was so grateful I cried. I felt my whole body go limp. I was even more scared than I had thought.

But I faced the wave. I looked for the truth. And now I can move forward, put the worries behind me, and use my energy for good things. It's a tiny step on my Buddhist path.

Do you get nervous when you get mammograms? Do you go weak in the knees? What do you wish your doc did to make it easier?

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