Routine Checkup My Ass

They've thrown me so many curve balls you'd think I'd be used to it by now. Like, that ordinary Friday afternoon when the word 'cancer' came from the GP's lips for the first time. Or the appointment when I was told it was not pre-cancer, as Dr W had thought, but full blown cancer. Or the one where I was told the PET scan, that we expected to be clear, wasn't. When instead it showed enlarged lymph nodes and that the cancer may have spread. Or when I went in thinking I was setting the date for my final surgery only to be told I needed chemo. Today was no different.

It was time for my post-op check-up. It'd been just over two months since I was told I was cancer-free and it was time to head back. I'd had a blood test two-days prior to check my hormones and was eager to get the results. I hadn't had a period since IVF and was paranoid that I'd gone into early-menopause. Today would hopefully shed some light.

We sat in the waiting room at the Gold Coast University Hospital outpatient department, as we have so many times before, and I felt good. It was familiar territory. But that familiar territory soon took me from feeling comfortable and content to burdened with flashbacks. While my body was waiting calmly to hear my number called, my head went racing back to each of those days when I'd been thrown a curve ball. In particular, the day I had gone in expecting news of surgery and instead got told I needed chemo. I remembered so clearly the way Dr W scooted his chair towards me before he spoke. I remembered the world slowing down and, just as they had that day in September, quiet tears started to overflow and roll down my cheeks.

My number was called and the registrar I met was lovely. She recapped the previous nine months of my life in thirty seconds flat and told me that this was a routine post-up check-up. I didn't need to worry. I left Chris and lay down on the all-too-familiar bed with the leg supports that spread your knees wide, a modesty sheet draped over me. An extra nurse was called in and I was given an all-over checkup. She felt around the lymph nodes in my neck and I saw a look of worry in her eyes as her hands rolled over the cyst that's been above my left collar-bone since I was a kid. I imagine when you're checking a cancer-patient and find a lump, especially in their lymph nodes, it's not ideal. Poor lass. She began the internal exam and then came a voice through the curtains "Hello love."

It was Ailish. The nurse who's been there through it all. She came in and kissed my forehead and I felt my heartbeat slow. With the speculum still inside me and the registrar having a good old look, we chatted about my hair growth and how I was back at work. Until we were abruptly interrupted.

"Ailish...can you get Graeme." The registrar spoke with urgency.

When somebody is staring at your cervix and asks to see the head of gynaecology, it's not a great feeling. Everything started spinning and I was right back in every appointment over the past few months in which I'd received bad news. My stomach churned and my heart sank. Something was wrong.

Dr W waltzed in and made it five people in the small, cramped room. He complimented my hair and chatted away and I didn't hear a word he said. I still had a speculum inside me, something looked abnormal and I wished he'd just get down there and do his thing. Then when he did, I wished he hadn't.

The jovial chatter stopped as he took his seat at the business end of the room, perched between my knees. As the registrar handed the end of the speculum over the Dr W, I realised how good this man was at his job. How well-respected. Everyone jumped into action as his voice turned focussed and sharp. He was in the zone and I wouldn't have been surprised to hear him ask for things 'stat' as he put his palm out towards the nurse who held the equipment he needed.

They had spotted some unusual tissue and it needed to be biopsied. The only thing was, the last time I had a biopsy, I threw up, almost passed out and gained myself the title "Lauren Fainter" (as I am currently saved in Dr W's phone).

Before I knew what was happening, I had completely lost it. Ailish was holding both of my hands and I squeezed them much harder than she deserved or probably expected. And then I cried. And not subtle nervous tears. I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed while the biopsy was performed and each word I heard uttered around me threw me deeper into flashbacks. When Dr W asked for 'silver nitrate sticks' I knew from my time in emergency that they would be poked inside me to stop the bleeding. Images of clots and my vagina being stuffed with bandage came rushing back. I was terrified.

While Ailish patted my head with a wet, cold baby-wipe of some kind, she tried her best to calm me down. She explained that the unusual tissue was most likely just granulated tissue, aka scar tissue, but they had to do their job and check. I knew that when they removed my cervix there was no cancer present. I knew that the chances of it somehow reappearing so soon was slim. My logical brain knew all of these things but it didn't seem to matter.

"Do you have to send the tissue away to get checked?" I blubbered.

"Yes, everything we biopsy needs to go to the lab."

I started sobbing more loudly and, between short gasps of air, turned into a three year old having a tantrum and stammered in Dr W's general direction, "I...hate...the...lab."

I could see his rational doctor brain internally shaking its head at my ridiculousness but nonetheless he attempted to make me feel better. "What are you doing in here with this other doctor anyway?" he joked. Apparently he and Ailish had made plans to sneak me in to see them, rather than the registrar who, at this point, was looking at me like 'who the heck are you and why do the head of gynaecology and the head gynaecology nurse care so much?'

Before I knew it, Dr W. was gone and I was bent over, pulling my nude-coloured g-string on in front of Ailish. I felt like a silly child who had done the wrong thing. All I wanted was to see my doctor and prove I was ok. To talk about life after cancer and thank him again for everything. Instead, he was left with an impression of me that was less than flattering. That of a dramatic, childish thirty-something who couldn't handle a simple biopsy. Who bawled her eyes out over something that was probably nothing.

I returned to Chris who had been sitting in the other room completely oblivious until the registrar had filled him in. "I didn't realise I was dealing with such a prize patient," she told him, referring to the incredible care I had been shown.

After a quick stop with Ailish to see the Austrian doc, who told me how well I looked and did his best to ignore my tear-stained cheeks, Chris and I left the outpatient department and made a bee-line for the bathroom. I did my best to stick the thick sanitary pad I had been given onto my g-string and shook my head at how I had managed to go full circle and still hadn't learned to wear appropriate underwear to my appointments.

Oh, and the blood test results weren't even back yet so I needn't have worried. Let the waiting game continue.