The Sinister Breast

The wine is meh, but I love the label!

Sinister has always been one of my favorite words in the English language.

Just hearing it gives me chills! It means evil, ill-fated, unlucky. It means something bad is coming. It’s an omen. It’s Halloween.

Not until adulthood did I learn that sinister can also mean “left.” Like the left side of your body. According to legend, during certain periods in history, being left-handed was considered unfortunate or even malicious.

When I acquired this knowledge, apparently my left breast was listening and chuckling to itself. Shortly thereafter, the little imp started screwing with me.

Part 1: Boob Wars

At age 27, I discovered a lump in my left breast. There I was, in the shower, and there it was, under my fingertips, the size of a chick pea. I poked, needing to feel it to believe it.

Then I freaked out a little. I had no health insurance or paid time off at my temp job. Worse, I had a tendency to overthink everything. I obsessed over the idea that I might have a fatal disease in my 20s. I hadn’t done anything with my life yet! I hardly had a savings account.

I called the women’s health center ahead of time to ask how much my procedure would cost. Nobody could tell me, because health care pricing in the United States is an unfathomable mystery that would cause Sherlock Holmes himself to quit. After being transferred four or five times, I gave up and accepted that I’d go into this with the added stress of potentially massive debt.

Good heavens, Watson. These billing codes are unlike any cipher I've ever seen!
This "CPT" fellow must be a master cryptographer!

When the day arrived, I was scared shitless. I spent half the biopsy trying not to cry, and the other half crying. The clinic staff were extremely kind, ignoring my tears and going about their business, chatting to me as if we were in a grocery store together instead of a clinic.

The pathology report declared the lump a fibroadenoma, which is benign. I was giddy with relief. Another blessing was the organization that helped uninsured patients with medical costs. I still don’t know who paid that bill, but I’m still grateful.

A year or two later, the lump vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

Part 2: The Mammary Strikes Back

At age 41, my first-ever mammogram found another lump in my left breast. The Sinister Breast strikes again!

Soon I was scheduled for yet another biopsy. I drove to the hospital in good spirits. Why wouldn’t I be cheerful? I had half a day off work! Paid, even! I was already planning a trip to Costco afterward, all by myself, which, as any mother who has dragged kids along on shopping trips knows, is bliss. Plus, I’d been through this before and knew what to expect. I sang along to 80s music as I parked the car.

I spent the whole procedure joking around with the doctor and the technician, who bantered right back. “I’m not into pain,” the doctor quipped as she injected me with extra anesthetic. Boob jokes were exchanged, sarcasm wielded, witticisms lobbed. It felt good. Like I was paying the universe back for that other time when I was the crying patient.

Afterward, the bleeding stubbornly refused to be stopped by mere gauze. So the nurses tightly wrapped my upper torso in an oversized Ace bandage, like the world’s ugliest sports bra. I left feeling like Milla Jovovich from The Fifth Element:

In Conclusion…

Sometimes life makes no sense. I’m older now, so it’s likelier that a biopsy will find cancer than when I was 27. And yet I’m not obsessing about it. I should be more of a worrier now that I have kids. Yet I’m less worried. Maybe one benefit of a ridiculously busy life is that I don’t have time to dwell on things anymore.

I don’t know what other tricks the Sinister Breast may have up her sleeve. But I do know it’s a lot more fun to laugh about unpleasant things than cry about them. If that’s the only wisdom I get out of old age, well, maybe that’s the only wisdom I really need anyway.

I'm Going to Costco, Motherf*ckers