Table Seven

I sat them down and kindly informed them that I was going to need somewhere in the neighborhood of 10grand to save my eggs. It wasn’t the actual freezing that is so expensive, it is the extraction.
It might seem dramatic, but I am thirty and if Oprah and those old people in Greece are indeed correct, my dear eggs are already beginning in dwindle.
After this biopsy, I had a really terrible feeling. Sweet cousin Kelli kept saying that it would just be a cruel joke if cancer hit our family twice in the same year, but stranger things have happened to other families.
It really was the radiologist that knocked me into next week, imaginary phone calls to MDAnderson, having to brace myself for what might be. “…you have abnormal blood flow through this area, the biopsy will determine exactly what might be wrong… you need to be prepared…” And then it was from the looks of it, if something is wrong, the spot is small, I wouldn’t anticipate anything more than radiation… He rattled off percentages, details, how long this particular procedure would be. When he spoke, it was as though time stood still and seemed like an eternity, but I think in actuality it was no more than five minutes. Do you have any questions? At that time, I could really rattle it right back to you, I followed, concentrated on every word, but then, when I went to explain it to my parents, the percentages got confused, the details jumbled, all that really came out was something about radiation and a five-year drug to help me along.
This was an MRI guided biopsy, which was quite different from what I knew. This spot was found on an MRI that had been suggested after an irregularity in an ultrasound, which came about after a mammogram and other biopsy. It’s been a long few months. MRI guided means that you go back in the tube, you go back in the breast cups, you go back to sitting very, very still.
Someone was thinking. You climb onto the MRI table, and on your knees, open your robe and drop your body, breasts first into plastic cups. Square plastic cups. And your forehead rests on a little mat. Your eyes are looking down, but they have this mirror contraption that at least lets you see out. So even though you are about to be slid into a tube, face down, and aren’t supposed to move at all, you can open your eyes and see out into the room. Really, someone was thinking.
But I digress, because the thought of death, dying young can make you crazy. Make me crazy. And really, death wasn’t even where my brain went. I focused on the fact that radiation might kill my eggs. And I might not have children. Forget the fact that I don’t have anyone with whom to procreate.
Then through sleepless nights, I thought about other ways to better me. I have to worry less. I have to follow my heart. I have to sleep - more, all throughout the night. I have to put myself first. I have to relax. Seriously, relax. I have to enjoy my days. Exercise. Play. I have to take random time to smell the roses. Don’t be so anxious. Laugh. Be. Calm down.