Mammogram Poem

Mammogram By Teri Bordenave


I
Good luck she said as
I left the room, clothes in one
hand, borrowed garment clutched in
the other, protectively, against
my left breast.
My left breast - the one over my heart.
My left breast - the one she just flattened and x-rayed in the darkened room.
My left breast - the one they took another look at today.
My left breast - one of the two that fed my daughter’s life.
My left breast - the one that wears your favorite nipple.
My left breast - the one I now cradle, instinctively, in my sleep.



II
It was a voice I didn’t recognize,
the one in the message on my phone.
“I’m sure you’ve heard by now,” it said,
“we found some abnormalities
in your mammogram.” Turned out to be
Tanika, film librarian at the diagnostic center
looking to add more x-rays to her collection.
Mine. “So we can compare,” her voice
trailed off as my ears started to close up,
my whole head fell into a large pool
of murky pond water, body following, as I
tried to remember which way was up.


III
I’d been here before. When I was twenty, alone
and on medicaid. In those days, you were put
under, put up in the hospital for three days, put
through the wringer because you were poor and
the medical students needed to practice looking
at breasts, taking off and replacing bandages.


Filling out my paperwork, the woman in Admissions
asked me my religion. Agnostic, I told her. “No dear,
how were you raised?” she asked slowly, as though
I didn’t understand the importance of her question.
I think she didn’t know how to spell it. So,
I told her I’d been raised Catholic, but was now
in recovery. I don’t think she understood the
importance of my answer. When I woke from
the drugs, to a male voice calling my name,
and saw a priest, anointing me and praying, I knew
I was dying. Twenty. Alone. In a cold hospital
room, in the cold Northeast.
I was wrong.


IV
“It will hurt more this time,” Ellen warned me as
I stepped up to the GE machine “ ‘cause we
have to look more closely at this one area; the
suspicious area.” How can a breast, something
so soft and maternal, so sexual and sensual, so
lovely and nurturing have a suspicious area, I
wondered. GE and its “Imagination at work”
tagline was bringing good things to my life today
I kept telling myself as the plates did their best to
squeeze all the imagination right out of me.

I waited as she consulted with the radiologist. I
sat in the cold black plastic chair in the softly-lit
room wondering why mood lighting is a part of
getting a mammogram. I sat hoping that I’d soon
be on my way, thankful for this tool, and grateful
I’d not have to see one again for twelve months.
Twelve minutes, felt like thirty, and back she came
Dr. Rad in tow. As soon as I saw him, heard him
tell me his name, shook his hand and tried to
look him in the eye, I knew. This was not good.
I was right.




Teri Bordenave is a poet and an organizational development consultant. She lives on Kent Island in Maryland and also in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Mammogram

This morning I went for my annual mammogram. It’s never been an issue. No history of breast cancer in my family and no “breast problems” as they delicately ask at “The Breast Center”. (How come no “Colon Center” with special snacks and pretty changing rooms?) My only breast problem over the years has been finding the right bra—too small for most really sexy push-ups but just a tad too much for going braless.

But since last night when I put the reminder and the mammo script on my calendar for the morning, I began to imagine, What if they say, “Please wait for the doctor”? What if they say, “You need to come back?” Over coffee and in the car I tortured myself with trying to imagine what I would do. Would I tell anyone? Talk to my therapist first? If I had cancer what would that mean to John? To lose the breasts he is so crazy about? Would I do chemo? How in the world could we both have cancer at the same time? Who would take care of me? What would become of us?

Before John's colon cancer diagnosis a mamogram was just a chore, something to put off or take care of. Before the day of his colonoscopy I was aware of illness and death--my family has died--but I never had to hear, "You have cancer." Now I know how ordinary those days can be and how your life --and the lives of those who love you --can change in a few words.

It didn’t help that in the waiting room of The Breast Center there were men waiting. They were accompanying their partners who did have “breast problems”. The long wait, surrounded by pink everything (Yes, fear that I will be punished for my arrogance was a possibility too), didn’t help. Finally into the room and push and pull and smoosh and tear—small breasts just don’t fit the machine-- my neck stretching to get enough chest tissue onto the plate. “Hold your breath” the technician says—as if I had even been able to take a full breath since leaving the house.