The Byrd's Nest

“Ugh! I’m so nervous,” I thought to myself while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I noticed my palms were sweaty. I hate sweaty palms, especially my big mitts. It is like holding a wet ham. “Oh, why am I so nervous?” I asked.

I knew why. A couple of years ago, I noticed a rough patch of skin on my left side near my waistline. It was small and felt as though it were scabbed over. I looked in the mirror, saw the tiny spot and decided to leave it be.

Months went by before I noticed it again. This time it was a little larger. The blemish still felt rough to the touch, so I picked at it a little bit and then let it go again.

It wasn’t until a few more months had passed that I began to get concerned over my little spot. I could feel with my finger that it was no longer rough. It was smooth and a little larger than before. It was a pink color, so I began to assume it was a flesh-colored mole. Best leave it alone, I thought to myself.

There was no going away for this blemish. More months passed and the sucker was still there … taunting me. What am I, it asked of me (well, at least in my head). I finally decided to find out. That is what led to me sitting in the doctor’s office, rubbing my sweaty ham-palms together in a furious flurry of worry.

“The doctor will see you now,” the nurse said.

I was the only one in the waiting room, so I leaped to my feet, internally fighting to convince myself that my worry was for naught and I should stop being such a baby. After a brief stop at the scale, I was plopped on the table and strapped to a blood pressure machine.

The cuff inflated to a painful point which also cut off circulation to my hand. The tingling sensation in my fingertips was a perfect distraction for my mind. The machine must have agreed with me because after relinquishing some of its hold, it puffed back up to choke my arm arteries once more.

I took some deep breaths and calmed myself in hopes that it wouldn’t want a third go-round on my upper arm. I’m not sure that I could have taken it without at least some bruising. The calming technique pleased blood pressure gods and the cuff released my arm.

The nurse left the room after telling me the doctor would be right in.

Let me tell you something. When you are nervous, time is endless. A second draws out into a minute, a minute becomes an hour and an hour might as well be a day. I sat there for five minutes, according to my watch. My sweaty ham-palms tried desperately to surf the Internet on my cell phone, but my sausage fingers couldn’t land the target buttons for their quivering.

I gave up on it. I hit a large button to turn on the music function on my phone. The pleasing song quelled some of my nervousness just in time to hear the knock-knock of the doc.

“How we doing today?” she asked.

“I’m so nervous, I’m twitchy, that’s how,” I responded.

A few moments later, she heard the spot’s backstory and wanted to investigate it. So I lifted my shirt a little bit and found the spot with my finger. I held my breath.
“Well, it doesn’t appear to be skin cancer,” she said.

I may have let out the largest, longest sigh in human history. I reached over and patted her on the back, confessing my love for her diagnosis. It’s not cancer! I couldn’t have been happier, which was obvious by my ham-palms return to normal moisture levels.

What a close call, I thought to myself. As I sat there listening to the doctor tell me that it might grow a little bit more, but other than causing some cosmetic concern, it should be of no worry, I was infinitely glad I had visited the doctor’s office.

Fortunately for me, cancer does not run in our family. One grandmother passed away of stomach cancer after 70-plus years of using chewing tobacco. My other grandmother is a breast cancer survivor, and has been for nearly 20 years.

I thanked the doctor, I thanked my good genes and I thanked myself for going through all that nervousness to get done what needed to get done.

The moral of the story is if you suspect something isn’t right with your body, go get it checked. Don’t let the fear of the diagnosis prevent you from getting help early. Early detection is the largest contributor to full recovery.