Ahhhh!

I've been meaning to ask this question for some time, but keep forgetting.

One time, a few years ago, I managed to give my doctor quite a surprise, and vice versa. I had a cold and he wanted to examine my throat. He turned on his little light and peered in, I dutifully said, "Ahhhh!" and he reared back and shouted,

"Whoa! What did you do that for?"

It was a bit embarrassing, really. I didn't know how to answer. I said "Ahhhh!" because that's what I thought I was SUPPOSED to do.

I have never done it again, but now and again I wonder about the whole thing.

Do you say "Ahhh!" at your doctor?

Reds under the beds

I went to the doctor today. I have a couple of odd-looking freckles on my legs that didn't used to be there, and I wanted him to recommend a dermatologist. I don't think they are skin cancer, but I want to be sure. My dad had a small skin cancer removed from his forehead once.

My doctor looked at them and laughed.

"That's not skin cancer!" he said.

"I didn't think it was, really," I said. "But I would feel pretty stupid if I was wrong and I hadn't checked it."

I told him about my father, and he wrote me a referral letter to a dermatologist, who happens to be across the street.

"He used to be the director of the skin clinic at Keiritsu hospital," he said. "He's very good. Do you want the freckles removed?"

"No," I said.

"But he's VERY good with laser removal," he said. He seemed very keen for me to have them removed. He likes surgical procedures, as long as he doesn't have to do them himself. (He was horrified when he heard that the boob specialist had said he could aspirate my lumps for me. The way he backed into a corner with his hands up you'd think I'd suggested he perform open heart surgery.)

"It hadn't even occurred to me to have them removed," I said. "Do they look bad?"

"No," said the doctor. "But sometimes ladies worry about these things."

He dictated the letter to his secretary. Then he asked me how I'd got on with my new gynecologist. I explained that I hadn't used the one he recommended after all, because I went to the one my friend used. "She's very good," I said, "But I'll be going back to my old one next time. I found her!"

I told him where my old gynecologist was working now.

"That hospital!" said my doctor, alarmed. "I don't recommend it. They're all Communists!"

"Really?" I said. I hadn't suspected my doctor of being a reds-under-the-beds sort of guy.

"Yes!" he said. "They all belong to the Communist Party. The hospital gets their doctors straight from medical school, and the doctors don't get any other experience. So they're no good."

"They're ALL communists?" I asked.

"Ninety percent," he assured me. "And XXX hospital is also left wing. They're all Sociologists. Scientologists. You know. It's the same problem. The doctors aren't any good at those hospitals, so I can't recommend them."

I explained my gynecologist's background, and he was somewhat mollified.

"Just don't use that hospital for anything else," he told me sternly.

"I won't," I said.

The dermatologist is next. I'll probably see him on Friday.

Lumpy

It has been a dramatic couple of days. Yesterday morning I (or rather, The Man) discovered a REALLY BIG lump in my breast. I went straight to my GP, who got me a referral to a breast cancer specialist at a big hospital. That's where I was today.

Or rather, that's where we were today. The Man came too, to hold my hand and to interpret the difficult bits.

I spent the day sitting or lying topless in various examining rooms with strange men poking at my boobs. I learned a lot, and one of the things I learned was about the bit in the web page I read in preparation for the mammogram which said,

Having a mammogram requires that you undress above the waist. A wrap will be provided by the facility for you to wear.

I learned that that was not written for Japan, or at least not for the (very good) hospital I went to. There was no wrap. And while I was barely conscious of it at the time, there is something surreal in the memory of sitting half naked in a chair and having a friendly and entirely professional conversation with a man I had never met before. Well, with three different men, actually, at different times.

I now know that I have not one lump but several. They are cysts, and harmless. Repeat that out loud, friends, and rejoice. Say it after me:

H A R M L E S S

Didn't that sound good?

The specialist told me these cysts are very common, although ones as large as mine are less so (but equally harmless). One is almost 5 centimetres. (We gaijin always have to do things bigger and, er, better.) He said that often they shrink on their own, but sometimes they grow bigger. If they get too big or are in an awkward place they can be uncomfortable.

He offered to aspirate them on the spot (suck out the fluid with a needle and collapse them), and I asked if that would be better for my health. He said it made no difference, but most people don't like them being there.

I thought about needles. I thought about lumpy boobs.

I decided to go with the lumpy boobs. Why spoil good news by passing out? The specialist told me that my GP can do the aspiration if I change my mind later, anyway. It's simple. I can get this done on a casual walk-in visit. You know, walk in, ask him to stick a needle into my ... I don't feel like finishing that sentence.

But anyway, I'm thinking that if I grow these things big enough maybe one day I'll end up with cleavage!

More seriously, this incident provoked a lot of thoughts about mortality, the easy way we take the wondrousness of life for granted, the nature of panic, and a lot of other things. For a woman, finding a lump in a breast is a plunge into nightmare of dire possibilities, even though, as I learned from the ever-reliable Dr Google, chances are pretty good it will be benign. I was lucky. It did turn out well.

But for me the really good news is that I got over the panic BEFORE I knew the results. This was a new and entirely welcome experience. I was pleased with myself, especially since when I had a similar scare a few years ago (in that case an ovarian cyst), I was a mess for a week, waiting for some test results. And that was the week AFTER the doctor told me she was more than 99% sure it was harmless - the tests were just to make everything 100% sure. I lost several kilos waiting for those results, and had trouble sleeping. The difference this time is that yesterday morning I was a panic-stricken acid-stomached mess and really annoyed at myself (starving yourself is not a rational response to a crisis), but by last night (still the same day we discovered the lump, and before knowing anything about this alien thing that had suddenly appeared in my body) I ate a decent dinner and then slept like a baby. Today when we walked into that hospital I was calm. I was ready for anything.

So yes, it was a scary experience, but it turned out to be a good one, too, in more ways than the obvious one. I'm counting it as progress. I do not want to be a coward forever, and that was a step forward.

Getting over the needle phobia is the NEXT step.

(And yes, I know that sounds like a contradiction - that I was 'ready for anything' and then didn't want to have the cysts aspirated because I am scared of needles. But needles as necessity are one thing. Voluntary needles because I 'don't like' some harmless cysts are something else ENTIRELY.)