Note To Self

My doctor doesn't think that I'm dying of cancer.

I went to see him about the mysterious blister on the underside of one of my breasts that doesn't seem to be healing well. When added to the terrible itchiness, brief flirtations with mastitis, and alarmist emails, well . . .

It turns out that I probably have dry skin, irritating nursing bras, and a burn on the underside of one of my breasts from sleeping on a heating pad turned up too high to help with a (normal, typical) clogged duct.

He thinks it's healing fine, and will send me to see someone else if it still looks ugly in a couple more weeks. (It has started healing better over the last couple of days, and the increased pain I think is a good sign of feeling actually returning to the burned area. The only weird thing was that it didn't hurt at the time, probably because I was feverish and sleeping. I am an idiot.) And since my itchy skin is much, much better with the new moisturizer I'm using, I'm inclined to believe him about the cancer.

Whew.

Here's where I went wrong with the doctor's appointment. "I need to find a babysitter; what a pain," I thought when the doctor's first available appointment was at an inconvenient time for Paul to be away from work. Then I remembered, "Hey, I'm in a babysitting co-op!"

I made one call, which didn't immediately pan out perfectly. And I hate the phone and go to great lengths to avoid it.

"Hey, again," I thought. "This is a short visit. I'll just take Ada with me. Everyone will love seeing the baby I was pregnant with this time last year. She can sit on my left knee while the doctor fiddles with my right breast. Much easier!"

See what I mean by great lengths?

This is how it actually played out. I arrived on time (yay!) but neglected to think about the fact that the doctor's practice had split/moved, plus it was a new calendar year, plus we have new insurance. So I had to occupy Ada while filling out a lot of paperwork.

Ada loves books. I packed 7 of her favorites, and she wasn't interested in a single one of them. Of course. So after the paperwork, I spent the next 10 hours (or minutes, whatever) bouncing up and down, singing, dancing, whooshing around the tiny waiting area, letting her touch the doorstop, blinds, magazines, etc.

Finally (after a wait that would have been too brief if it had been just my book and me alone in a chair) I got to go back to an exam room. Well, first I had to be weighed, and the less said about that, the better. The nurse held Ada, who screamed about it.

Then I had to figure out how to unhook my bra while holding a child. (I put her down, natch. Fortunately, she was willing and able to stand next to me.)

Then I held her on my lap, perched on that table we women know all too well, feeding her Goldfish while we waited for the doctor. Who wanted me to lie down for the examination.

Picture this: I am lying back on the exam table, shirt raised and right arm over my head. My left arm is fully extended out in front of me to hold onto Ada's arm. She, meanwhile, is perched on my left knee and is not very fussy or wiggly, thankfully.

But she must have been a little stressed by the experience; she fell asleep in the car on the way home and napped for more than an hour; an unusual experience for my little daytime sleep dieter!

"Self," I thought on the way back out to the car, "Just pick up the doggone phone next time. What sucks in the moment is so very, very worth it in the end."

Also, I'm having a hard time imagining my next annual pap smear (8 weeks from now, but who's counting?) with a baby on my lap.