maybe mezzo

 Early August 2021 It has been nearly a month since my freshly squeezed sample has been sent off and I decide to ring the doctor to see if she has had results. No mean feat at the moment. I am assuming that 'no news is good news'. This request involves me getting past the triage stage but thankfully the Dr rings me and reads out the letter, of which I should have had a copy apparently. There is nothing in the histology, all 'normal', nothing except 'benign' scattered all over the letter and just the confirmation that one duct is over enlarged. I ask for a copy of the letter to be emailed but it seems emails are not safe enough (but the online form where you need to report all and sundry in order to get to the Dr seems to be ok!) and I receive some kind of strange gateway to get to it which I cannot access. Finally a receptionist DOES email it to me! More appointments will be set up and from being somebody who has not been to a Dr in the last 10-15 year...

In early July 2021 I am in the local surgery, with my Doctor examining my left breast after I had reported a couple of months of occasional blooded discharge found in my bra; just a spot you understand, every 10 days or so, but concerning. During Covid times, just getting a Dr appointment is a major success, but it is amazing what effect the words 'blood' and 'nipple' can bring about. So here I am half naked on her couch. Her concern strengthens when she feels some 'lumpiness'. With my family history of breast cancer, she decides to fast track me into the system, while reiterating that this is not because she thinks it is cancer. I leave reeling. My world has just changed. An agonising two weeks passes and the hospital appointment letter and enclosed documents do nothing to alleviate my anxiety, in fact they make me face what I am trying to ignore. But there they sit, staring at me. As a positive and usually health person, this knocks me for six.  I am a 62 year...