a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks.

i had been thinking of getting a mammogram because i hadn't had one since last august right before i got my piercings. doing my own exams i hadn't felt any changes so i debated skipping this year and do one next year. i decided against it because i know of someone that waited 18 months between mammograms and she was later diagnosed with cancer by the next mammogram. my job was offering mammograms through the mammogram mobile and they were going to be at the job. it's on my day off so why not. i make my appointment and ask if it's ok if i leave in my piercings. they tell me to have them removed for the exam. so fearing any closures, i decide to go to the piercing studio to have them swapped out for retainers. kait says that she doesn't feel comfortable with glass retainers and mammograms because they can be fairly aggressive and she doesn't want to risk the glass breaking. in my experience they can be aggressive but not on the nipple. out of the two of us, i've been the only one that has had a mammogram so i have a better understanding of it but i let her convince me as she indicated with me having them for over a year, they won't close in 4 hours. i take them out right before i leave the house, get my exam then run to the bathroom to put the jewelry back. i can't. they've closed in less than an hour. i'm beyond pissed and figuratively on fire. i'm thinking i'm going to have to get them re-pierced...something not on the agenda because that crap hurt and the healing time is close to a year. i'm not paying for it. the odd thing is, after having being pierced for a year, my nipples look weird as hell naked. i don't want to go back to naked nipples.

i walk into the piercing studio some hours later and let her know that they close. she says they more than likely didn't close but shrank. she can use a taper to get them back in. i honestly couldn't see the fistula on one side but sure let's use a taper. color me in pain because she did use that taper and it hurt like hell. going from a mammogram and the taper all within a matter of hours i was in need of a warm pillow and a nap.i said for the next mammogram i'm getting alternative retainers because the taper is not something i want to revisit.

a few days later i get a new piercing. it's a conch. it's one of the easiest piercings i have. it barely hurt. perhaps a 1 out of 10 on the pain scale. i have plans to get more piercings in the future. i want to decorate both ears. it's just the studio that i want to continue to patronize is expensive. this little beauty cost me $120. the jewelry that i used is real gold. i could've gone cheaper but the alternative was to use jewelry that looked juvenile (colors - blue, white, purple, etc) or to anodize titanium to look gold but ultimately looks yellow. i'm 42, i need to look like an adult even though i'm getting pierced like someone 20 years younger. and i need to get some jewelry replaced because they look cheap now in such close proximity to the gold disk.

i get a phone call a few days later from the diagnostics examiner that i need to come in for a sonogram on my right breast for clarity. so now i'm alarmed. what the hell? i haven't felt anything from my own exams. what could you need more clarity on since i did extra for this exam. i did a 3d mammogram along with the traditional one. you should have more clarity. my anxiety is high at this point so i try to get in that day. they don't take appointments after 4 and i get off at 3:45pm. there is no way i can get there in time. and as nightmare situations would have it, i work the full work week and don't have thursday off as i normally do. so i try to get in on saturday. no luck. no openings. i'm off the following thursday and schedule the first opening for the 25th. so now i have to wait another week with this weighing on me.

and as things couldn't get any more ominous, my last call for that same day was an elderly lady saying she was a breast cancer survivor. so naturally i inquired. i told her that i was asked to come in for a sonogram. she said the same was asked of her. i told her that i couldn't feel anything. she said she couldn't feel anything either. *slow blinks* they did a biopsy and it came back stage 1 cancer. they take it out mangling her breast at the same time. she said by the time they got done with her D-cup it was a B-cup. since they are more focused on removing the cancer and less on aesthetic they left her feeling dismissed as it wasn't just as important. after the surgery they did 33 sessions of radiation that left her breast hard, lumpy and black. and what they didn't tell her was that the radiation treatments can cause cancers elsewhere. now she's been diagnosed with a brain tumor and needs surgery. she said after going through what she has gone through already it's not worth the damage because she'd rather have quality of life. in retrospect, instead of going through the surgery she'd rather have gotten mastectomies on both breasts and left it at that. just trying to find bras and clothing that fit well is challenging. at that time of her diagnosis and surgery she was asking the doctors if they had any information for support groups and they didn't have any. granted it was 10 years ago but that's disturbing they even 10 years ago that there wasn't support groups for her to be directed to help her go through that time. she was saying how difficult it was to go through radiation. even going to the bathroom. she would wait until the last minute because she had no energy nor any strength. unbeknownst to her, i took down her information just in case i need to talk to her.

after listening to her, i've decided that if anything comes back as cancer i won't go through the traditional treatments. i don't have anyone physically that can help me. i don't want my breast mangled nor turned black. there are other natural treatments that i will do with diet and herbs. i'm on a facebook page that swears that altering your diet to an alkaline diet that it rids the body of illness including cancer. my other concern would be getting healthcare for any pre-existing conditions.

the good news is, i was already in a 90-day consecration since the previous week. spending at least an hour with God in prayer, worship, and reading. i remember before getting the phone call to schedule the sonogram i was writing in my journal that i want Him to strengthen my faith but to give me the grace to handle the testing of it. ironic, huh? so i've been in prayer and repeating healing and faith scriptures. doing so has stifled my natural inclination to stress and worry...don't get me wrong, i am concerned, but i'm not stressed nor worried. this has helped me greatly. i just start remembering all the promises that God has made me and i stand on that. either way, i'm going to be ok.