Breast Cancer Scare: No Cell Phone in the Waiting Room

Getting a mammogram is a necessary evil, especially after having breast cancer back in 2016.

SO back in Ohio and back to the Breast Center at MVH I went for my yearly mammo.  Having completed the squish plate chore, the nurse took the results to be read by the radiologist. I had to wait in the exam room and DRAT forgot my phone to distract me. The room was quiet except for the faint hum from the machine in the corner.   I stared at the mammo bot in the corner, white and still, clinical and cold BUT then I noticed a face. Pareidolia seems to be a thing with me. Not much else in the room to hold my interest to  thought I'd close my eyes and meditate.

I heard a noise from the corner. 

Mammo bot looked taller. I looked and looked and the machine looked… taller. It hadn’t been that tall before. Had it?

Wheels. There were wheels at the base.

“Was it always on wheels?”

Surely, I would have noticed something like that. A machine that large, mobile, ready to move—it would have stood out. But now the wheels were unmistakable, dark and solid against the floor.

The hum grew louder. No—closer.

Naw! Just stress, I told myself. Just nerves. I'm imagining things. 

Close my eyes again. 

 A soft, rolling click.

My eyes snapped open.

The machine was closer.

I stared, trying to anchor it in logic. Maybe I misjudged the distance before. Maybe the room was smaller than it looked. Maybe—

I blinked.

Closer again.

Now there was no mistaking it. The thing is bloody well moving. It’s getting closer, the hum louder and the face looking right at me and menacing. Hell with this.  I am getting out of here. It moved again. 

I rushed toward the door. Didn’t look back but I could feel its machine breath on my neck and towering behind me now.  I’m grabbing the door handle, sweating bullets. then footsteps and voices just outside the door.

The radiologist stepped into the doorway: brow furrowed slightly in concern.

“Are you alright?”

The machine stood in the corner.

Still. Silent. Exactly where it had been.

No wheels.

No movement.

Just a machine.

The radiologist followed my gaze, then looked back at me.

It was then he shared the news.

“Mrs. B. We found a lump.”

NOTE: After a follow up appointment for an ultrasound it turned out to be a cyst.