The Ancient City

I envisioned myself running into the ancient city of Karakorum…sweaty, salt-streaked, and stinking of seven days beneath the Mongolian sun. My pack bounced against my back as the crew clapped, cheering me toward the finish line.

“You doing, OK?” someone called out.

Then, suddenly, I was back.

The sound faded, replaced by the hum of the ultrasound machine. The nurse pressed down hard on the already tender spot on my left breast.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “We’ve got about three more minutes. You’re doing good.”

“Ok, Paige. Thank you,” I managed.

“Why are we doing this again?” I asked.

“Vascularity. To ensure there is no bleeding.”

“Ok. Paige.” I said.

I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling tiles. A sea turtle had been painted across one of them—its fins outstretched, floating in an endless white. I closed my eyes, clenched the fist on my trembling left arm, and focused on my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Through the nose. Slow. Controlled.

Her voice broke through again: “When you go home, make sure you—”

But I drifted. The pain was dull, radiating, and I tried to escape it by slipping back into the desert.

None of the Biopsy Videos I watched in preparation for this procedure had prepared me for this…..the raw ache, the pressure.

“Ok? Did you understand?……. Ok??” she said, her voice growing louder.

“Yes,” I replied, though I hadn’t heard everything.

“Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off?” I asked, uncertain.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be in your post procedure notes.”

“Ok” I said again, quietly.

The last three minutes dragged on like hours. It was the longest five minutes of my life—the worst part of the biopsy….the unrelenting pressure on freshly punctured flesh.

I could still hear the metallic click-click of the core needle echoing in my left ear as I lay on my side, thinking absurdly about the sterility of the instruments, about my cells traveling to pathology, about whether a human or a Machine Vision AI system would be used to interpret them.

Next, I was escorted to a second room for what they described as a gentle mammogram.

When it was all finally over, they wrapped me tightly in a bandage and let me go.

“Samples are collected. It’s out of my hands now.” I thought.

I walked into the lobby and saw my husband waiting patiently. I couldn’t say much. Didn’t want to say much. There were others in the lobby observing my exit.

“I’ll go get the car” he said.

My husband pulled into the front of the building and I started to cry as soon as I got into the car. Now I understood why the prepare for procedure notes insisted you have a driver.

The pain wasn’t just physical…..it was also the weight of uncertainty.

I clenched my fist, breathed through it, and saw myself again beneath the Mongolian sky……running, enduring, surviving.

Now, I wait.