October of last year I had to go through another horrifying callback ultrasound, it is a bittersweet feeling, as in, yes, it is great you are getting yourself checked, but the stress you go through can (and will) age you.
The best news after an MRI or a Mammogram is no news. When you see the Women’s College Hospital number around 8 am calling your phone the day after the MRI, you will be hit with an electrical shock, and depending on who is on the line, the electricity can be as normal as it can be, or it can fuck you up.
“Miss Taghizadeh, you need to come back for an invasive ultrasound, it will take an hour”.
Invasive? What the hell does that mean? Terminologies I don’t know.
And of course, there is no appointment available till next month, although it is a callback.
Well, I have one month to bear this edge. From earlier experiences, I have learned to use this time to reflect on myself and do some self-editing.
During my other “callback reflections” (I‘ve had 3 of them so far) I was angry with whoever hurt me, and I blamed them for my shattered heart. I blamed people around me who were unkind, for using me, for abusing me, and it pushed me to cut ties with the ones I felt I didn’t have chemistry with.
I felt I didn’t want to be abused anymore.
And stopped me from being the one in Annie Lennox’s song:
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
On the day of the intrusive ultrasound. On the bed. I’m cold. I’m helpless. I’m vulnerable. The nurse started the exam. She squeezed that cold gel on me, rolling the handle back and forth on my skin, up, down, pressing, pushing, releasing, as if searching for something in my core. Then she said, “I don’t see an obvious one, let me get the doctor to take a look.”
Oh my god… I asked, “Does that mean you see some unobvious ones?” She left to get 2nd opinion. During that time waiting for someone to come back, I felt drowned in my thoughts, I heard my friend Desi’s voice which reminded me of self-compassion years ago, she told me “You need to forgive yourself, love yourself and don’t blame yourself for any mistakes”, which helped me a great deal at the time.
On the bed. Still waiting for the doctor to see if there is an obvious tumour in my right breast. I was hearing Desi again.
The nurse came back with a practicing resident, she examined me, pointed at the screen, and asked the nurse, “Is it the spot you said you see the spread, and here is the other spot?”
What? Spread? The tumours are there and have already spread out?????? What the fuck! They didn’t hear me. The resident said, “I have to see this on the big monitor”. She came back after a time that felt like forever and said, “I have to call in my superior”.
She left me and my thoughts and my right boob waiting. Exposed. Now colder. Now even more confused.
I felt so sorry for myself, I felt I had been very hard on myself, I felt the need to caress myself, to caress my hair and say, “it’s ok.”
The door opened and the senior doctor came with a big smile, which was more confusing. When she was examining me, I was trembling, but in the process, tears came down on my right cheek…
and I forgave myself right there and then.
She said, “Nothing to worry about now, we’ll just have to monitor it, see you in 6 months.”
Oh my.
Lucky me.
I aged in this process, and I have another 6 months to live on the edge, but most importantly I forgave myself. I made peace with all my past missteps…Well, at least until future mistakes haunt me of course :).
The thing is, I am certain that, I will definitely make mistakes again, I will most probably put too much trust in the wrong people, and my heart will most probably be broken.
But now I am hoping to be reminded to forgive myself again and again.
But what if I repeat the same mistake?
Isn’t this our daily fear? It is one of mine. It is a valid and bold fear. And depending on how big or small the mistake is, our approaches change. We try to avoid it, we try not to make mistakes, and once we do, we start blaming ourselves.
I recently came across an interview with Novak Djokovic, 24x Grand Slam tennis winner who gets very hard on himself to be the best, saying:
I think that the recovery from how long you stay in that emotion is what differentiates you from others.
Listening to him really changed my life,
I am only human, and I am incomplete, I do make mistakes every day, especially since my passion side is a lot more dominant than my logic side. But instead of changing myself, I am just trying to recover from my mistakes a little quicker.
There won’t be adventures without dangers, there won’t be pleasures without pains, and there won’t be joy without wounds.
Let’s embrace life, accepting that mistakes are inevitable. More importantly, we must learn to forgive ourselves and recover gracefully from setbacks.
And don’t forget
#loveistheanswer
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