The itty, bitty, titty committee is about to get littyI had texted Quinn on my way to my mammogram two days ago to remind her of our joint boob party on opposite coasts and that she got her mother’s flat chest.
Watch out that your balloons don’t pop from the pressure. Oh wait, they’re already deflated thanks to your six foot four boys.Quinn had responded correctly, as I feel them hanging heavy and bare under my exam gown.
“You can see it says so on my past mammogram reports, but that’s all fine,” I continue informing Dr. Kwan, using my boob authority to challenge her medical expertise and to speed along this meet and greet that Mary Jane strong-armed me into having.
Walking in for my appointment, I immediately noticed that in the short time since Dr. Newman retired, the waiting room had been redecorated from a color palette of beige and brown to a space resembling an expensive mauve-hued med-spa. With clipboard in hand, I updated my information and signed on the line to give Dr. Kwan permission to digitize all my records from my time with Dr. Newman. Positioned across from me was a framed poster of a blissed-out woman in a wispy gauze dress cradling her pregnant belly, and it made me miss the cracked leather seats and months-old, beaten-upTimemagazines that used to litter the waiting room. The gurgling of the water feature in the corner irritated rather than soothed me, as did the tepid water at the tea station.
I have no idea what additional information Dr. Kwan may have to give me that the radiologist at the mammogram center didn’t already deliver, but from the look on her face, it can’t be good. I start fiddling with the wedding ring I have yet to remove and wait for Dr. Kwan’s response to my recounted health status. When the doctor remains mute, I continue my summary to fill the sterile silence. “During my last visit,Dr. Newman told me I’m in excellent condition. I’ve got a lot of good miles left on me,” I report to Dr. Kwan, assuming she will accept this interpretation of my well-being and call it A-OK, even if I did liken my checkup to a car mechanic’s appraisal without looking under the hood.
I adored Dr. Newman. He started every appointment with “Hello, beautiful,” and chatted nonstop to keep me at ease as his face and fingers dove under my gown. Even as the years wore on, he continued to conclude my checkups with a compliment along the lines of “Aging is a bitch, Callie, but at least you have a kick-ass bod.” Now, thinking back on it, Dr. Newman’s medical words of encouragement may have been less than appropriate by today’s conversational standards. But he made me feel great about myself, like I continued to be a viable presence with all the time in the world to make my mark. And what woman doesn’t want to hear that after years of fretting over what to make for dinner? Isn’t self-love the most important part of living a happy and healthy life? I’m pretty sure it says so on one of Dr. Kwan’s ethereal posters hanging in the waiting room.
Ignoring my self-described breast diagnosis and Dr. Newman’s assessment of my overall health, Dr. Kwan enunciates slowly, “I see my nurse, Patty, got your weight, height, and blood pressure before I came in.”
Patty sure did. She didn’t even question me when I backed up onto the scale and transferred my weight onto the right foot, lightening the left, attempting to fudge the numbers. I’m sure she hasn’t witnessed a woman over fifty step on the scale headfirst, ever.
Dr. Kwan taps her pen on the top page in my paper file and then looks to the ceiling, like she’s disturbed by something but she’s not quite sure what. Using her stilettos to push off the floor until the wheels of her stool reach the door, Dr. Kwan cracks it open and yells, “Patty, can you grab me some more lifestyle pamphlets? We’re out in Room C.” Really? That’s what’s been occupying the doctor’s mind during my appointment—housekeeping concerns?
“Everything okay with my breasts?” I ask when Dr. Kwan returns to reading my file. I notice she has perfectly gelled baby-pink nails as she tucks her pen into her lab coat so she can flip through my history. I can’t help but wonder if they are worth the money when, for so much of the time, they’re covered in placenta, afterbirth, and chunky stuff when she’s on call for obstetrics.
“Your breasts are perfect, which I am happy to see. And you’re right, they are quite dense.” I smile at my A-plus tissue grade. I used to consider the worddensean insult, but now I choose to interpret it asfirm. “We asked you to schedule an appointment because you haven’t been in for an annual exam in over two years.”
“That’s impossible. I saw Dr. Newman right after he announced his retirement.” Which is true. I got the letter that he was retiring and moving to Lander, and a straight-out-of-University-of-Michigan-medical-school residency had purchased his practice and would be continuing to offer his patients excellent care. In her professional headshot, Dr. Kwan didn’t look more than a handful of years older than John, and her body had certainly not experienced the havoc of childbirth like many of the patients she would be tending to. She was a child herself.
“Dr. Newman announced his retirement over two years ago, but he only left the practice last year. He wanted to give his clients a long lead to digest the news and be able to see him one last time.” Dr. Kwan gives me a conciliatory smile that makes me think she’s trying not to patronize my bad math and schedule keeping by empathizing with a “time flies” sentiment. What I am thinking is that calling the hundreds of cooches she now tends to “clients” is plain weird.
“You last saw him right before your fiftieth birthday. We called you in because it’s important to keep your annual appointments, particularly after the half-century mark, when things may start to turn.”
You don’t have to tell me that,I consider adding, if only to make Dr. Kwan feel a little bit bad for not knowing me at all, even though that’s my fault. I miss Dr. Newman, who routinely inquired after John, Andrew, and Thomas, and enjoyed chatting with me about new fictionhe was reading and old fiction he was considering returning to. The two of us could talk about literature right through my Pap smear. Now I’m going to have to unpack my life story to this stranger. I exhale a huge breath, the idea of sharing the tale of how Thomas derailed my life surely about to drain me.
“Overall, how are you feeling?” Dr. Kwan asks with concern, possibly picking up on my crumpled body language of low-grade fatigue as she opens the worn cotton baby-blue issued gown, one of the few recognizable holdovers from Dr. Newman’s practice, to listen to my heartbeat.
I want to admit to her that I feel lousy. I should disclose, like Alexander from the children’s book in her waiting room, that I have had a long lineup of not good, very bad days, in which my biggest accomplishment has been getting out of bed, and even that didn’t happen every morning. But I feel guilty for complaining. It’s been three months since Thomas left, and the initial shock of it has settled into a dull, constant ache that, while terrible, is not terminal. I have an enviable roof over my head, even if it’s in the wrong city. I have two sons who are thriving and check in on me, a close neighbor to trade celebrations and complaints with, and a best friend waiting with interest to hear if my boobs and vag are up to par, so who am I to grumble? I answer, “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh. How about your sleep?” Dr. Kwan moves the stethoscope from my front to my back.
“I guess like every other menopausal woman in the world. It takes me hours to fall asleep, and shortly after I do, I wake up to pee and the cycle repeats.” Hopefully I can get a refillable prescription for Ambien as a party favor for this, the worst fete in town.
“Hot flashes?”
“They visit me every day at about 4:45 p.m.”
“And your alcohol consumption—do you drink?” My lack of response Dr. Kwan takes as a solid yes. “More or less than five drinks a week?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes more, sometimes less. Depends on the week.” The amount changes if I run out of cigarettes too quickly, but I’m not giving that up to the vice police.
“Ummm. Okay. Okay. Is there any pain when you and your husband are having sex?” she asks with routine nonchalance.
I think to myself,What are the fewest number of words I can use to impart that I’m married to another woman’s boyfriend?
“No sex.” I inhale as Dr. Kwan holds the stethoscope more firmly on my back like she can’t detect if I have a beating heart. “And no husband anymore either,” I blow out as I release the breath I’m holding. Dr. Kwan doesn’t flinch at my confession, which I appreciate on our first date.
“What about exercise? What do you like to do to get your body moving?” she solicits, reaching for my folder, which had been set on the counter.
I think about that query for a minute. I was raised by a mother who donned a skirt, heels, and pearls before I was up and in my school uniform. When we would pass ladies on the street wearing sneakers with their suits on their commute to work, she would tightly grab my hand and pull me toward her, like the career women’s poor footwear choices might rub off on me. Helen Steele believed in self-restraint in the name of beauty, not exertion. Consequently, I grew up avoiding sports, but I could wax poetic about Greek and Roman mythology in addition to waxing my legs. And I knew how to shotgun a Tab soda.
