DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE . . .

I have had a strange pain -- a stinging, burning sensation -- in my left breast for about a week now. Sharing the burden of this pain and describing it to my friends has been an interesting experience -- a mini-sociological study, if you will -- in and of itself. For example . . .

. . . Soy and JKA, two of my main partners in crime, ask me whenever they see me how I'm feeling. They ask about my symptoms, they give me the worried furrowed eyebrows, then tell me that I have to go to the doctor immediately, even giving me a little push to emphasize their point; Soy says I can't leave them hanging. Very normal, sisterly reaction. I am comforted.

. . . Mrs.G graciously offers her own friendship as well as the medical-advice services of her husband, Dr.G. "I know you don't believe it," she says with a grin, "but he can be quite professional and has helped other friends of mine out before, with second opinions and stuff." I am so grateful to her (and Dr.G too) and I express my appreciation. "Of course, if he starts giggling after saying the word 'breast'," she adds pensively, "then you might want to end the conversation there." Good point. I'll be keeping that under consideration.

. . . the older women at church love to kick into "mom" gear. If they could, they would just reach over and give me a breast examination themselves! They offer prayers for me -- even standing right in the middle of the fellowship hall at church, and tell me tales of their own breast pains and what they did or took to overcome it. They hug me a lot, too, but that kind of hurts, so I need to think of a nice way to discourage that for as long as the pain lasts. Their concern, while humorous at times, is certainly touching and makes me again so thankful for my friendships -- new and old -- and my growing ability to appreciate them more fully.

. . . JW, still immersed in his medical books for Friday's Boards, asks all the right clinical questions. I am not embarrassed -- I can put on my patient face as well as he puts on his doctor face. Then he whispers, "Do you have nipple discharge?" WHAT?! NOW I'm embarrassed. Outwardly, I say, "No, no discharge." Inwardly, my brain is screaming, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THE WORDS 'NIPPLE DISCHARGE' TO ME!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!" But I can't laugh in his face when he's being so sincere, so I save it for later and I bust out hysterically in the car.

. . . C can't look me in the eye and say the word 'breast' at the same time. So he refers to my pain benignly as 'the heart condition'. Which makes me want to laugh almost as much as "nipple discharge." Okay, okay, I know it's not funny . . .

. . . I called my OB/GYN's office this morning to make an appointment for as soon as possible. Doc's going to be out on vacation until next week, the receptionist informs me. I tell her that it's not really an emergency, I don't think, but I have a pain in my breast and I think I felt something there that wasn't there before. All of a sudden, I can go in tomorrow afternoon at 12:30pm. Wow. They do take this stuff seriously. I don't know why I thought otherwise.

. . . and then there's me. I freak out at everything. Seeing a spider on the wall makes me think there are hundreds of them crawling all over the room. Watching someone else get hurt -- even a small paper-cut -- makes me jump into action and go running for the Band-Aids and the Neosporin (of course!). Observing a plane flying overhead convinces me that it's going to slam into another tall building somewhere. But when it comes to me, I get really . . . calm. Sure, I may wince and flinch involuntarily in public, but in my own head, I'm thinking, "It's no big deal. It's just an infection. I just pulled a muscle. There's no cancer in my family. It's just a calcification or something weird like that. I'll just take some Aleve and make it go away. I'll just fight through the pain. I don't need to see a doctor. What should I have for lunch?"

I don't know what makes me so (ir)rational about myself. Am I in denial? Or is it too scary and surreal to consider the alternatives? Or does my subconscious know that I'm right, that there's nothing wrong with me? Or am I really not afraid of illness and/or the death of myself? Strange questions, that I never thought I'd be pondering right about now . . .