Hello, Are You There? Did You Find It?

It's Monday morning, the "Great Texas Winter Storm of 2022" has passed. The rain did freeze but melted 2 days later. No one batted an eye about the events of the storm that just occurred 48 hours prior that they all freaked out over. Nuts! But great, maybe this means I can hit the ground running on this Manic Monday, right? Nope. Wrong answer. Everyone is backed up for being off work for 2 whole days. OMG! Get it together people. And if you think I can make this up, I cannot. Not as hard as I may try. Now offices aren't answering their phones because they are trying to return all the calls they missed the last couple days and rearrange schedules to fit in all the appointments they had to cancel. Fan-Fucking-Tastic!

I had a scheduled doctors appointment with my PCP for Monday, February 7, 2022. I wanted to get my blood work done to see if there are any other mysteries, parties or adventures developing within my body. I go and I almost instantly regret it. I saw this new PCP, Nurse Practitioner for the first time last year in June for my annual physical. I didn't like her then but decided to give her a second chance because my former PCP set the bar so high, I may have been too judgmental, with those high standards once again. No, I certainly did not. She walks in, confirms that she received the information on my breast cancer diagnosis and proceeds to tell me that I need to quit smoking and work on my sugar addiction. Pardon me? You just walked in. I have had no blood work done yet and you are coming to these conclusions already? Go eat a bag of dicks you rude ass bitch. She then elaborates on my sugar addiction (which I forgot to mention is not a thing for me) and says that a sugar addiction is one of the hardest to beat and it is going to be tough. I guess I wasn't feeling as witty as I normally do that day, because later on I had thoughts on that statement.....Are you telling me it's harder to break a sugar addiction in comparison to heroin? Crack? Meth? So you are telling me if I go use heroin, I can break that habit easier than my alleged sugar addiction? I would have to agree with none of your opinions. I also then thought that perhaps her degree came out of a cereal or cracker jack box. I will not be seeing her again.

Progress has begun to be made, finally. I scheduled my MRI appointment for this Thursday, just 3 days from now, February 10, 2022. Perfect. Act like YOUR life depends on this shit as much as mine does. I also have a follow up appointment with my breast surgeon on February 16, 2022. I'm glad things have finally started moving along. It's about damn time!

The day of my MRI comes. I am feeling excellent. I even dress sassy and walk like a boss (see photo below). I feel so good about myself and am so confident. I get to my appointment. I wait and wait. Ok, well whatever. Not my favorite thing to do but I am at their mercy at this point. I finally get in. The MRI tech tells me to undress from the waist up, put this gown on, and remove all my jewelry. Fuck me. I hope you plan on working overtime tonight. (My earrings are a pain in the ass to get out, and I rarely take them out for that reason; I have 12 earrings between both my ears and have long nails). He needs to insert an IV. Fine. That's not hard, at least not in my experience of getting poked. How many times can I be wrong? I dont know, but this is another one of those times. I tell him to take it from my left arm, in the crease. I know this place is a winner. Always has been. He said "How am I supposed to see your vein? I have never drawn blood from someone with a tattoo there before" (I have a full sleeve with no bare skin anywhere). I looked at him flabbergasted. I then asked "I am not a phlebotomist or anything, but aren't you supposed to feel for the vein and not look for it?" I said "You get one try. Let's get it right the first time". Blank stare. OMG, my confidence in this guy is very questionable. He decided he will get it from the top of my left hand. Not my favorite place at all! First poke, hit, then missed. Second poke, same results. He indeed hit my vein but failed to hold the needle in place and it popped out. I look him in the face and say "Frances, this third time needs to be the charm. I have confidence in you that this is it." all the while thinking OMG, I will do it myself if you can't do it, with zero confidence as I lied through my teeth. Third time he goes in through my left arm in the crease, where I told him to do it. Congrats, here is half a gold star for you today! 

I climb onto the base of the machine, lay face down and insert my boobs each in a "boob cutout". Mind you, this is my first MRI, and I had no idea what to expect, which is par for the course. Tech asks me if I want to listen to music and says it'll be loud in the MRI tube. I said "sure" and he then asks what I want to listen to. As sassy as I was feeling, I said "surprise me", and that he did. He hit the nail on the head and played 80's rock. Granted this is not something I normally listen to, it matched perfectly with my mood. He tells me it'll be quick. Well, don't ever assume that you and another person define "quick" the same way. He said 25 minutes. I was thinking more like 5 minutes. Whoops. Good thing I wasn't in a rush. My MRI is done. I can get dressed and leave. Woohoo!