The week before last I got one of *those* calls at the office. The number on the caller ID was my GYN, who I’d spent some quality stirrup/awkward banter time with just a few weeks prior.

Nursie-poo says I need to come back, all the scary test results returned with a HALLELUJAH negative, but there weren’t enough cells for them to complete the scariest of all. She also rambled about my thyroid – which has behaved itself to the best of my knowledge since that radioactive iodine uptake over ten years ago – but I’d already checked out.

Let’s back up. What. The. F___. Not enough cells? For what, cloning me? I’m pretty awesome with my grey streak and sharp wit, but let’s not go overboard. How many do they need? And really, when you’re shoving a toilet brush up my hoo-hah so far I actually used the sweat sock covered stirrups to bear down, I’M CERTAIN you got more than your fair share of my fleshy bagel.

But yeah, okay, I’ll cut my over-earned vacation short to come for a bad boomerang visit because it has to be a certain time in my cycle and you’ve got a drunk frat boy working in your lab. Sounds like a hoot!

So I get there painfully early (as I arrive everywhere painfully early, a side effect of waiting on my perpetually tardy father during those dark days before cell phones) and sit reading and guzzling water in the lobby for half an hour next to a woman and her one month old who are chaperoned by every woman in her family over 30 because she clearly can’t be trusted to carry this precious cargo to a check-up on her own, or because they’re that bored. The latter is more likely since they were passing a cell phone around & yammering on in Spanish as the clock ticked like tar and I intermittently checked to see if their volume knob was somewhere I could reach.

When I couldn’t take it anymore – and by that I mean I figured it was close enough to my appointment time that I could check in without being judged – I went upstairs to find a continuation of my nightmare that will surely catapult me straight to hell for even considering documenting.

A creature I’d never fathomed was in the waiting room: a blind woman screwing with her cellphone that talked to her while babbling to no one in particular about how loud her phone is and how it doesn’t allow her privacy. Ohhhhhkaaaay. So for the next 15 minutes I endure her telling someone at the office how to sort files by type in Windows Explorer, and when it was finally, joyously over snapping her phone shut and muttering a hostile remark about mentoring.

Both impressed and annoyed (I had never contemplated a blind woman going for a pap smear and my imagination now has far too much fodder), I was not to be outdone.

When my name is finally called, I shift my mindset to a single focus: to be the first person to ever heed the request of the lab tech via her pleading post on the wall of the sterile loo – to write both my first and last name on the specimen cup. Oh, but wait. I plan to take the game to a whole new level and do so legibly.

Not to toot my own horn, but I accomplished my mission with execution that should earn me a gold medal, and don’t think for a second that I wasn’t tempted to take a picture. The only thing stopping me (with the exception of you seeing my legal name) was that in the time it takes to launch the camera on my nearly antique iPhone 3G, the nurse surely would have assumed I was taking an atomic poop. Which I wasn’t. In fact, I’m shamed I even wrote/typed that word. No one but the lab tech and I and I may ever know how skilled I am, and you, if you believe. Do you believe, Peter?

Off to delousing station #3, where I get to do that thing we all dread and push the red button on the wall and wait…eyeballing the tiny torture instrument on the counter and attempting a telepathic ceasefire with an inanimate object.
I swear it looks just like the little device I’d get from my orthodontist when I wore braces with bands to get the chunks of Wonderbread out of their homesteads between my brackets.

They look like this, and I bet my GYN pays more for them than I would at CVS.

Now, boys; I encourage you to imagine having that bit of modern medicine shoved up your pee hold and swept around a bit, because that makes you even with every woman reading this whose knees just clamped shut at the memory of her last visit and filled with dread for her next. Unless you’ve had children, in which case you’ve seen and heard worse and I’m sorry for that, but let’s be honest, that’s your own damn fault.

It’s all normal from there except for the part where she talks about my misbehaving thyroid while my ass hangs out the back of the threadbare sheet on my lap I attempted to pull around me. She asks if I’m tired. Sure I’m tired, but am I tired because I’m aging and had a 5 year bout where the most exercise I got was standing for 3 hours at a time during a Tweet-Up, or am I aging and tired because of the thyroid?

Either way, I’m going to take synthroid every day. With all that said, I’m writing this on my yellow tablet (see previous illustration) at my favorite haunt where I waddled in mentally willing that feeble cotton attempt to control the possible aftermath of my assault not to fall out the leg of my shorts (every woman reading this knows what I’m talking about, don’t act like you don’t).

What IS that? I mean I know what it was, but really – “here’s a pantyliner in case you bleed out from my having just scraped 10% of your lady bits off your cervix with a device we haven’t bothered improving on since the middle ages.”? It isn’t quite the antidote I’d go for after such an…interaction.

In fact, I motion that there should be a bar between the exam room and the checkout counter.

That beautiful nugget of innovation? Another of my under appreciated talents.

Oh, love, I’ve spared you so much. You have no idea the ramblings I’ve been tempted to type in the last few months about perimenopause and all its glory. But because of of love? LOVE, I’ve spared you.

At least, I think it was love. Either way, it passed like that “headache” I got on prom night.

Perimenopause is like puberty in reverse. Remember the days of sweaters around your waist? They’re back. Never knowing when she’s going to show up? Also back. Not knowing how angry or vindictive she’s going to be when she gets here? You got it. Oh, the joy.

On top of several months of that delight, I had a different surprise last week.

Listening to my body as I do, when something wasn’t right a few months ago, I locked in. I focused and monitored and documented. Like a fat girl and a skinny girl on a see-saw I had it front of mind then ever so briefly and with great effort to back of mind and then it stuck, front of mind. Months later, when documentation was as informative as it needed to be and I had avoided going to the doctor for long enough thankyouverymuch I called and went in. This brings us to last week, and the rookie nurse who left a mark on my arm drawing blood that makes me look like a junkie.

That wasn’t enough, though, and my good Dr. Ruth (shut up! Her name really is Ruth.) confirmed what I already knew – that one of these things is not like the other. That there was something on/near/in the same zip code as my uterus that clearly wasn’t invited or intended. “No, it’s not a pony”, she said. Damn it.

The worst part of any medical malady could be the waiting and the voices in your head that fill that space between identification of the issue and the appointments or appointments and results, or results and action plans, or action plans and a Doctor as the BFF lifeguard of the pool of youth yelling “adult swim over, all swim!” I tell myself that I’ve been through this before – more or less every 6 months for nearly 15 years (has it been so long already!?!). That’s only kind of true, and further proof that the voices in my head are constantly battling and bickering. With my boobs it was early in life, when I was still ignorant and invincible. I’ve grown into it, now it’s just as much a part of me as the gray hair. But this is different. I’m not invincible anymore.

This morning The Mc was every bit the generous and kind spirit I fell in love with. He drove us to the hospital, trying his damnedest to keep my spirits up as I pounded the 32 oz of water in an hour (!!!) prescribed, even if I kinda think he was trying to make me pee and the hoisted spirits were a byproduct. His smile and hand squeezes were the only comfort I could ask for.

After the seemingly eternal check in with said 32 oz of water sloshing around in places I don’t like to think about, the radio tech took a quick peek at my belly via ultrasound from the outside, then insisted on looking from the inside. That shit right there should be illegal, my friend. I’m pretty sure she was up there so far she went back in time.

And now, we wait. The Mc worked from home this afternoon and after a nice lunch together and some cuddles, I took off to process and do intern homework and write a bit.

I’ve called my tribe together to meet me tonight at my favorite pub – to talk about anything but this, to laugh and love and bridge part of the gap while the 2-3 days between now and the results trickle past.

While [rationally] I’m sure it’s nothing, right now [emotionally] I feel old, and fragile, and broken. I’m a little angry that I did everything right and there’s still something wrong, and I’m a little bitter about the piddly crap people – me included – whine about when there are bigger, uglier, scarier issues out there (feels a lot like when my folks passed, oddly enough). In the end though, the beauty of it all – if there is anything beautiful about it at all – is that love takes the edge off. I’m thankful for those in my life who have love to spare and who share with me, and I’m thankful I’m able to ask for and receive it.

I never ever ever post from work but this time, I can’t help it. It’s all I can do not to run a lap around my building right now (which, btw, would hurt like hell given the state of my boob)

For those of you who are not following me on twitter or my friend on facebook, I just got the call from the Dr. – I’m free and clear! Back to the old every 6 months routine unless I find something else funky in the meantime…

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It’s been nearly a decade since I found my first lump. It was in my right booblie, and after monitoring a few weeks I went to see my girlie doc, who confirmed it and referred me to a dedicated boobage specialist.

It was a cyst, but the one the mammogram revealed in my other breast wasn’t.

That nasty little dude was eradicated and in the years since there have been frequent visits back to the doc, more cysts and more bad guys.

A few weeks ago I found a new little fella had cropped up, and a week or two later noted that he must have been lonely, because he now had a new friend.

I’ve been stewing on this for a few weeks now, my appointment is next Tuesday to see which kind of bad guys we’re dealing with.

Knowing that I’ll be in a holding pen for the better part of two hours while they ultrasound and read results and mammogram and read results and then eventually I get to talk to a doctor, I’m lining up the bits that I like to bring to keep me busy. There’s always a book, sometimes some knitting and always my iPod/iPhone.

Make me a playlist or suggest a song. Tell me what kind of good juju beats I should have thumpin’ and keepin’ me company…and don’t say that Melissa Etheredge song b/c it just makes me cry.

The third lump? A subdermal tumor removed from my middle finger last week. Good times!

So bring it. What songs?

I took the week of our move off work. I was floating on fumes and nary a wisp of patience or kindness when it finally arrived. Months of living out of boxes after a year of living in suburban hell, movers that were four hours late, cable guys that were two hours early, boxes and kittens and fur balls like tumbleweeds dancing across concrete had taken their toll. The Mc didn’t have enough PTO saved up to unpack with me and wow, what a blessing. I needed time to nest, recharge, reacclimate and reengage, Mr. Sulu! Preferably solo Sulu.

After threve bijillion trips from the apartment to the condo to the apartment to the condo with my not-as-much-cargo-space-as-you’d-think filled to the gills with plants, shoes, and piles of items I failed to pack for the movers in what I can only describe as stress induced delusions of “I can get that-itis”, I decided I’d stop. I’d stop on the way to the condo and treat myself to a little mani-pedi action at a place I’d just been introduced to to a few months before.

After a delicious soak and with warmed silk eye pillow and buckwheat neck pillows in place, I was reclined in an anti-gravity chair and starting to check out. My technician and I chatted while she massaged and trimmed, then she fell silent.

“Huh.”
“What is it?” I whipped my eye pillow off as she lifted my foot this way and that, angling it in the light, sqinting her eyes and saying “huh” again.
“I’ll be right back.”

She gets up and scurries off, leaving me to lift my foot to my face, mortified, blushing wildly and counting my blessings that it’s 2pm on a weekday and I’m the only one in the salon.

A few moments later she returns with reinforcements. An attractive blond, presumably the salon manager hmmmed and grunted while examining my feet. The concensus: some sort of fungus and it wasn’t athletes foot.

I yelped and whimpered and whines the likes of Nellie on Little House on the Prarie seeped out of my lips with words like “I’m the cootie customer!” and “I have funky feet!”

I was horrified. I’m still horrified. You’re probably horrified. The next time you see me you’ll stare at my feet, unable to think of anything else. It’s happening to me every morning.

Luckily I have an awesome GP about my age who also grew up in Anchorage, and my visit started off with a good ten minutes of Palin mocking. Ahhhh a slice of home right here in the hot hot.

Short story far longer than it should be, whatever it is isn’t anything special or that scary. I have a fancy lotion to make the dead skin on my feet slough off and I need to stay hydrated, and maybe not wear flip flops in the rain in Atlanta anymore…though he tried to convince me that didn’t have anything to do with it. Psha. Like he’s a doctor or something.

1grace
Pronunciation: \ˈgrās\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin gratia favor, charm, thanks, from gratus pleasing, grateful; akin to Sanskrit gṛṇāti he praises
Date: 12th century

1 a: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
2 a: approval, favor barchaic : mercy, pardon c: a special favor : privilege d: disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency e: a temporary exemption : reprieve

You know that part in the movie Signs where the alien has the kid in his arms and Mel Gibson has the flashback to his wife, dying? She’s pinned between a car and a tree and she says “tell Merrill to swing away” and he thinks she’s out of her mind (dying, obviously) until that moment years later when it all hits him smack in the face in the living room with the trophy baseball bat?

If you didn’t remember, maybe you do now.

My mom used to call me two things that went beyond the expected variations on my nickname or even *gasp* my real, full name. All three of ‘em. Beyond Megret, McGarrett, Meggers and the like were these two: Clyde and Grace.

Clyde was because I’m a “heavy walker”, have been since I was a tater-tot dipped in ketchup and loaded with salt and pepper. I also had big feet for my age, calves that – in relation to my thighs – resembled a Clydesdale.

Grace was a slam she used on both my sister and I, one I can only imagine she picked up in the 50′s. “Way to go, Grace. I like the way you knocked that entire rack of Funyons over when you tried to be sly about grabbing one in the first place.”

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” – — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

I believe, my friends, I’m aging.

December 29th of 2004, I was in the bedroom of my apartment during my Christmas sabbatical. I’d read Blue Like Jazz and Lamb over the course of that week, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt Grace. It’s something I’ve been hesitant to tell others that I knew wouldn’t understand, or those that were outside of my immediate circle. There were a few I IM’ed or emailed about it because I knew they’d understand, I remember as clearly as I can feel this sub-dermal zit brewing on the bridge of my nose that Becky was one of them.

Nearly four years later with the onset of my existential crisis, I’ve been reading again. I’ve been seeking. Exploring. Groping in the dark for the light that will help me find my way. Everywhere I look, everything I read, every conversation or tweet loosely related to my journey brings me back here: to Grace.

I am admittedly a fuckup of epic proportions. I was a horrible student, have binged and purged when it comes to caring about my career, was more times than not a complete headache to both of my parents, and have failed at a million things without even including marriage. I struggle with depression, refusing to medicate for it, I have a hot temper at times and vacillate between a fiery, quick tongue and a jaw clamped shut when it shouldn’t be. I swear too much. I talk to other cars in traffic when I get frustrated.

Of all the things I’m not though, I am not a hypocrite. I know my flaws better than all of you combined and I beat myself up for them regularly.

How fitting; then, that Grace keeps coming…the reminder of what it is, and the peace it brings me and the want and drive and compulsion I have to be a better person every day. To speak from the heart when it hurts and the inherent (and problematic) want better in the lives of everyone I know. Learning to love freely, and accept love without question. To work and work and work to show compassion and to understand those it’s difficult to wrap my feeble little mind around.

A few months ago, Mary Jac and I reconnected after a year apart. I won’t go into details about that, but what’s important is that we each arrived back in each others lives at just the right time. We were in the same spiritual and psychological black holes, and together, we could pull ourselves out. We could lean on, lift up, fireman carry, counsel, coddle, and just flat out hug the stuffing out of each other while the bad man 30 feet up told us to put the lotion in the basket.

It happened over coffee before a cardboard box visit, one of us said “I want a new tattoo” and the other yelped with glee “me too” and when asked of what, the answer was “grace” followed by another “me too”.

So this last weekend when it was burned in us so hard and so fast that our eyes bled saline and we held each other in the dark (both physically and emotionally) I knew it was time. I knew I didn’t want to go a day for the rest of my life without thinking about it and feeling it.

I’m a transmitter. Sometimes I’m sending the signal, but more often, I’m receiving. And my mother? I like to think she was trying to tell me something then, even if she wasn’t. Because it stuck right where I needed it to, in the vulnerable places where I have no choice but to admit my flaws, and to try to do better.

…on the princess scale. I’m outraged.

Let me back up.

Last year I took three friends – who knew little of each other – on a road trip. We drove south 5 or 6 hours (who can keep track when you’re knitting?) to Jekyll Island and a magical, mystical, friendship cementing, chickens in trees and skinny dipping place called The Hostel in the Forest. During a lazy afternoon of reading on our bellies on a near desolate beach, we dipped ourselves in the ocean.

NOTE TO MEN: look away now.

It was during that dip and chattering over the waves and newfound buoyancy that the topic somehow turned to my needing to roll up the beach to the cabana for a check-in/swap out of a female variety. Problem was that we’d hustled away from the hostel (before chores, me thinks) and I hadn’t…ya know…packed properly. One of the girls couldn’t offer me assistance because she’s a member of the Diva Cup cult, and another couldn’t because she hadn’t packed anything – didn’t need to. The last of my wee little piggies offered her stash of OB.

Now let me just say that as much as I love the earth, I do not love jamming my own appendages in my girlie places. The other alternative involved a cardboard applicator…to which I replied something along the lines of “I have a sensitive vagina.”

Alright. It wasn’t along those lines. It was that line.

The line was noted in our book of fabulous one-liners for which we’d always remember our retreat and though amusing, I’d mostly forgotten it.

Until tonight.

I met up with said Queen of Cardboardandfingerjamming and a few friends tonight after work for a little adult giggletude. They’re her friends, really, a circle I’ve been invited to join time and again (and loved every minute of it!) but nonetheless, her friends first.

One of these friends (who may or may not remain NAMELESS) and my gal-pal apparently had an interesting conversation when we returned from our grand tree hugging adventure to the Georgia Shore, starting somewhere near my sensitive vagina and ending with their having rated all their friends on a Princess Scale – where they were the happy medium.

My vajayjay combined with my blogging apparently ranks me as a 6 on the princess scale – which – returning to my original point – I find appalling.

I consider myself something of a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners, say-it-like-it-is, hard-and-fast, hike-camp-dig-sweat, morse-code-dashing kinda gal. In real life. A solid 3. I’m a tomboy for cryin’ out loud. I don’t buy designer clothes or wear make-up or spend a lot of time on my hair (all other considering factors on the weighting scale).

It’s only here in the safe embrace of the faceless interwebs or with close friends that I let the other side out. I mean really -I grew up in a house where my mother used code like “BM”, and “TP”. I still can’t bring myself to use real words when I go to the doctor and tell them I don’t feel well. I CRIED at my doctor years ago when he suggested a colonoscopy while I was awake. I cry at commercials. But that’s for me and my loves and not for the whole world. Not for consideration in the running for This Circle of Friends Next Top Princess (which I was really in no danger of winning).

So there’s the rambling story and my ranking and now I want to know – if I’m ground zero, if I’m the neutral 5 on myveraown princess scale – based on what you know about me – where would you rate me? Where would you rate yourself?