The call back

By Judie Amyot, October 10th, 2012

When you're job hunting and have endured numerous interviews, getting that much-anticipated call back is the ultimate reward for having made a good first impression. You've intrigued a prospective employer giving them cause to want to get to know you better. You rush excitedly back to their offices dressed to the nines with a smile on your face that would brighten the cloudiest day. With any luck, you will beat out the competition all vying for the same position. All that remains is the torturous wait for the phone to ring again and the good news to be delivered.
That's all well and good for a job interview, but when the call back comes from the radiology centre where you've just had a mammogram, trepidation and fear are what follows. They saw something suspicious on your “resume” and want you to come in for another verification of your credentials. No need to dress up and smiling is strictly optional.
This happened to me this year and I have to confess it hit me like a ton of bricks. What did they see? The wives of many of my husband's friends, as well as several of my own friends, have battled and defeated breast cancer. Was it now my turn to fight the good fight?
The receptionist's emotionless “don't worry” did little to reassure me. So back I went to be compressed into a pancake once again. An ultrasound was also performed to allow for an even more detailed inspection of the area in question. I was then advised to see a specialist in breast surgery for the final prognosis and at that point, had visions of padded bras and wig choices running through my mind. But that was more optimistic than having my family place my urn on the mantle. Thankfully, my immediate demise has been postponed and hopefully for a long time.
The new digital mammography technology is so sensitive it can highlight every little speck in great detail which has increased the number of call backs exponentially. My situation was found to be presently benign but it will need to be monitored more frequently now that the presence of cysts has automatically placed me into a higher risk category. So be it; I can handle that.
As we age, the realization that our health and life is fragile really sinks in. We are no longer the brand new car rolling off the assembly line but an old clunker whose parts are starting to rust and not perform optimally anymore. Remember when you used to remember?
With youth comes memory as sharp as a tack. As we age, the fog descends into our memory banks and we struggle with basics like recalling names or why we marched purposefully into a room to retrieve a now forgotten item.
Plagued by aches and pains that we can find no explanation for, our family doctor — if we're lucky enough to have one — becomes our new best friend as we sit for hours in a waiting room to be blessed with only five minutes in their presence. He or she will then ship us off to a specialist where months down the road we are granted further testing and then told we're just fine.
However, occasionally those tests reveal we are not just fine and a life altering experience may be right around the corner that will hopefully have a positive outcome. It is hard to decide which symptoms to ignore and which to further investigate but erring on the side of caution will never fail you.
It is your body and your life and your medical professional should respect that with patience and compassion.
Indeed, there are some who run to the doctor convinced that every ache and pain means they must be terminally ill but conversely, there are those who choose to ignore worrisome symptoms with disastrous results.
Despite life being the crapshoot that we know it to be, it is infinitely better to get a call back that ends well rather than never making that call to your doctor in the first place. If something doesn't feel right and persists, get it checked out. Be proactive knowing that regular preventative maintenance is your best route to peace of mind and/or prompt treatment if something is discovered.
We need to keep that old clunker running smoothly as long as we can.
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