By Angela Youngblood
The construction upstairs while I am at work persists in knocks, bumps, and drills. Detritus falls on tiles above my head so I duck and dart and worry about the ceiling coming down.
And still this is not my most pressing fear—despite the noise in all its clattering doom.
My fingers rise to their involuntary home. Reach for the side of my neck as if possessed. An obsessive muscle memory, like fingers to a prayer bead. I feel for signs of change. Is my lymph node larger today? My neck tighter? Is it just my imagination?
I mention to my doctor my lymph nodes have been swollen for six months and counting. Is that normal? I am not worried at this point, I say, listing off all my family members—alive and dead—who have had cancer. She nods and books an ultrasound.
She wants to schedule a biopsy, did they forget to tell me? They did. Phone tag tells me the radiologist doesn’t think it necessary. They want to monitor every four months. Get a paper trail. Four months pass. Another neck ultrasound. Same story. Four more months. I wait for calls and get lost in paperwork. No agency.
My fears rise as I sit on the paper covered bed. Look at dimmed fluorescents and the earring of the imaging assistant. Holly Yashi, she tells me. A Christmas gift. She asks me to put my fingers to their home of worry. More clicks and beeps. She explains the noises are changing the contrast. She wishes me luck.
New news. They do want a biopsy. Reports now say: Shows signs it isn’t a bland lymph node. I do the math: Seventeen months swollen, ten months of doctors, three ultrasounds, two lost referrals, and over $1000 in appointments. Biopsy two weeks out. No answers. More questions. I can’t help but think about the state of our medical system. The order of operations that never seem to work in the patient’s favor.
Do I tell my feelings to the toaster? No burn today. No soft edges either. My eyes fall on the scattering of crumbs left like afterthoughts on the table. But the sunlight is framing each window in a perfect halo. The plants design their own geometry. And in this moment I forget to put my fingers to their place of worry.
Angela Youngblood lives and writes in a small northern California town. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from CSU Chico. Her essays have been published in Pithead Chapel, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Entropy, and The Boiler Journal. Amateur plant enthusiast, but not-as-vigilant-a-plant-caretaker-as-she-would-like-to-be, she tries to nourish things to grow. She sporadically posts on her nebulous blog youngofblood.wordpress.com.