There’s a meme I saw recently that joked about your body running with its check engine/service engine soon light on and knowing that you need to take care of it, but refusing to because you simply don’t have time or energy to do so. This meme was an accurate representation of my life for a while. I knew I needed to eat better, exercise more, focus on my mental health, etc. I knew these things but chose not to do act because “I’m a full-time student who works a lot” (I put this in quotations because this is my go-to excuse for why I can’t do something [ AKA anything]). But with recent life events and health-related situations, I want to discuss the importance of not letting yourself run with your service-engine-soon light on for too long. I am an advocate for sexual health, and I have been for a long time. This doesn’t just entail having safer sex, or making sure that your partner has a clean STI screen. It means ensuring that you don’t have a severe p.H. imbalance, any unresolved trauma from previous relationships and working through personal experiences (which takes time and isn’t always apparent), and even doing self-breast exams. I mention this last one because the last year-or-so has been affected by a self-performed exam, where I found a lump on my left breast. Last April, I mentioned the mass to my mom, who recommended I have it checked by a doctor on campus. It was small. I could feel it against my arm. It wasn’t painful but was accompanied with a bruise. My significant other was keeping an eye on it, making sure it didn’t bruise any more as we racked our brains to try to figure out what I hit my side on and what could have left such an ugly purple spot on my side. Upon going to the doctor, an ultrasound was ordered and we looked at it. I remember looking at it on the ultrasound screen, trying to recall what Google said fluid (cysts, in this case) looked like as opposed to solid masses. I was two weeks from moving to the other corner of the state and needed answers or some sort of peace-of-mind. The day before my last day at UA Monticello, the women’s clinic called and said, “Your ultrasound came back negative.” That was it. No clarification of what negative meant. I was told to come back in 6 months and have it checked again. My service light came on in April and I was told to leave it on for 6 more months. I waited longer. I kept doing self-checks. I kept saying, “It feels bigger.” I kept not handling it. January came and I finally decided that I had time to go back and have it checked. I contacted the on-campus women’s clinic (who I cannot recommend enough!) and made an appointment, where the nurse ordered another ultrasound to check on it. I remember the nurse practitioner saying that it was really big. I remember thinking that this was just another part of going through the motions. I remember them saying that we needed to surgically remove the tumor. The word “tumor” changed the game. It wasn’t “negative” -- it was a tumor. We prepared for surgery. The consultation, the doctors calls, and even feeling the lump didn’t make any of it feel real. I wasn’t scared until the night before. My boyfriend came over the night before to hang out with my parents and go to dinner, and I dreaded him leaving because that meant that we were getting closer to having to do the surgery. There had been an overwhelming sense of peace until there was an overwhelming sense of fear. I’ve learned that when I’m scared and people who are in authoritative positions tell me what to do, I naturally do what I’m told. Piercers, tattooists, doctors, I ultimately trust them enough to let them tell me what is in my best interest. While we were waiting, I wanted to crawl out of my skin and dissolve -- lump and all. I feared waking up during the procedure, I feared the pain, I feared not being aware of what happened to my body during the surgery. But there’s this medicine they put in your IV when you’re going back to the operating room that they call “The Tequila” that makes you “relaxed, sleepy, and forgetful”. And boy, does it. I did not care about anything once I had that in my system, and I woke up to a nurse standing by my bedside who was trying to talk to me. My throat was incredibly dry, so much so that I couldn’t speak. The only thing I could do to communicate with her that I was awake and could hear her was to sign. My parents taught me baby sign language as an infant so I could communicate with them, and I used it again at 20 years-old to communicate with the nurse to tell her thank you and that I needed water. (I am by absolutely no means fluent, but I knew enough to communicate with her until she got me something to drink.) Don’t underestimate how important early communication skills are; this is a prime example of the foundations of communication being laid down during the first few years of development. Sorry, I’m a Comm major. I woke up with the worst case of cotton mouth I have ever experienced. And I woke up again...and again, and again. (The anesthesia had me out and I was trying so hard to wake up.) My mom came back to recovery and I was given some crackers and water. I ate a bite of a cracker before it gummed up in my mouth and got stuck. Imagine eating a Popeyes biscuit without having any water for 7 years prior -- it was that bad. We checked out the incision and I was helped into the bathroom to change my clothes after going over discharge information. I was placed in a wheelchair and was wheeled to the car where my boyfriend and family was waiting for me so we could all go to my apartment. With the exception of randomly falling asleep and trying to order a calzone from my favorite local restaurant (with no luck, I might add), most of Thursday was a blur. I found out two days ago that the tumor was benign, as the doctors had told me time and time again. The tumor (or fibroadenoma as they also called it) had grown to “the size of a good egg” between late May and January. I have been blessed time and time again through this journey and the fact that it is over gives me more peace than anything else. So I say all of this to tell you that if you feel something off or you know your service light is on, take the time and try to figure out what will help you get back to running smoothly. It may be as simple as becoming more mindful of the things happening around you, or physically going to the doctor and figuring out what’s wrong. Make that time for yourself. - The Cynic
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AuthorGabrielle Willingham is a young Arkansan woman who sees the importance of simultaneous cynicism and optimism. Gabrielle is currently working on a MA in Communication with a focus in gender studies and political science. Archives
January 2021
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