It’s my story, I’ll tell it my way, and yeah, it’s been as scary as sweet Fanny fuck all. I’m telling it all after the fact cause I’m terrified, but trying very hard to hold it together and do what needs doing.

6/23- Sunday Night aka Houston, I Have a Problem– Found a suspicious bit in one of my dirtypillows as I was trying to fall asleep. Bye sleep! Lay awake twitching out, knowing there wasn’t shit I could do at 2am or 3am or 4am that would be helpful. Flip between ‘I didn’t really feel anything unusual’ and ‘omfg they are gonna slice off the girls’ to ‘and so what? Not like I haven’t done reconstructive surgery before.. and instead of having them tat on nipples, I’ll get little curled purple dragons and wig out poor Rick for the rest of his life’.

6/24- Monday Morning aka Denial, Not Just a River in Egypt– thank you, work day, for keeping me from running screaming into traffic. Focused until the meetings were done, somehow.

6/24- Monday Afternoon aka Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?– OK, work day is done, time to let my fingers do the walking and get a professional to fluff the dirtypillows.

First stop, insurance company du jour. Wonderful, empathetic phone agent tells me everything I need to know, gives me a number to call and schedule a mammothography thinger. My first, clearly, or I wouldn’t have started with my insurance company.

Second stop, random radiology place in which I endure three transfers and fifteen minutes on hold before being told I’m not allowed to schedule my own mammothography thinger, I have to have a referral from a Doctor, it’s like a prescription, and it doesn’t matter what my insurance agent told me to do. Said with all the empathy of someone telling me no, I can’t have a Whopper without pickles, wtf was I thinking? They schedule me to shut me up, then refer me to their Doctor of Choice. Bree comes and lays her head on my knee.

Third stop, Doctor of Choice. More time on hold, only to be told I have fucked up AGAIN in the ‘are you mentally deficient’ voice by scheduling the mammothgraphy thinger with the wrong clinic. And they’ll need to call me back about any kind of booking. (At time of writing, it’s been over an hour, no callback.) Bree crawls onto my footstool and then into my lap.

Fourth stop, in which I shake my fist at the Powers That Be and schedule an appointment with Planned Parenthood. They don’t take my insurance, but I don’t even remotely care at this point… they were willing to give me an appointment to honk the tatas and give me the Almighty Referral. I figure if Doctor of Choice calls me back and is somehow willing to bend all the rules and work with the radiology clinic that my insurance is willing to pay for in the timeframe I’ve got, I can always cancel the spare honking appointment.

And this is where I’m writing from right now- every single person I talked to, including my insurance company, was female. Only the insurance agent had anything remotely like empathy for my situation and the fact that while I’m doing my best to keep it together, I’m freaking the everliving mcfuck out. Now, I get that we’re talking about office staff that see way scarier shit than what I’m going through every single day of their lives.

But every one of those flaming bitches didn’t even act like they wanted to help me. They just told me how I was doing it all wrong with little to no attempt to get me on the ‘right’ path.

Why is this so hard? Don’t we hear a thousand times that early detection is the key to survival? What the fiery fuck is wrong with these cows?

6/25- Tuesday Midday- So this is how we play the waiting game– I took a perverse pleasure in cancelling the original (apparently very very wrong) thinger appointment, as well as politely telling the individual who finally called back from Doctor of Choice’s office that they really should have been in touch yesterday and I will not be seeking out their services. Later, when this is all over, I’ll post a frank review on their site, in hopes that someone actually running the joint will see how their office staff behaves.

I’m always pretty much coping if there’s something that needs doing. Now appointment is set, and I realize I am Schrodinger’s Bitch. I am suspended in time and space and both perfectly healthy and… not. I remind myself 5000 times a minute that there is absolutely no history of breast cancer in my family on either side. That this could be the opportunity to be the hottest 110 year old in the nursing home with my dragon tatt’d tatas which will be flashed to people randomly and frequently.

All these thoughts are me holding hyperventilation at bay, like my panic is a lion and I’m fending it off with a whip and a chair. I am Schrodinger’s Bitch, and this is how they cope.

6/25- Tuesday Evening- You’re not funny, but I’m laughing–

I haven’t said much so far in this little diary about how great Rick has been.

He’s honestly been great. We’ve been together long enough that he gets me, and he knows what I need and knows when to cuddle and just to let me go be a little Schrodinger’s Bitchly about things.

So when he came in and sheepishly asked if I’d found the problem on the left or right side, I was a little confused.

“Right side. Why?”

Rick ducked his head for a minute, like he was hemming and hawing over whether to keep talking or not. But of course, it’s Rick, so he keeps talking until I’m horror laughing. “Well, you know, if it has to be cut off, you don’t have to replace it. You could just like get a bow to carry around and say you’re an Amazon now.”

We’re sick people. I laughed.

6/26- Wednesday evening- You’re still not funny, but I’m still laughing 

Rick (from the depths of his shower)- Hey, there’s a problem with the Amazon thing.

Me- What’s that?

Rick- People are going to constantly say, aren’t you a little short to be an Amazon? It’ll be the classic line all. the. time.

7/1- Monday- But what about the DOG?!

In one long think night of not sleeping real well, the thought that hit me the hardest was my pup.

Bree is my girl, always has been- and she doesn’t understand when mama is gone for more than three or four hours.

How the hell was Bree going to understand if mama had to be gone for days and came back not really up to playing? Or, you know, period?

It’s one thing to accept a situation when you know the whys and wheres. It’s another when someone you love has no way of coming to understanding, they just know the situation changed.

I explained this to Rick, who, thankfully, can take it in the same spirit in which he dishes it out. “Yes, Bree would have issues.”

7/3- Wednesday- The palpating 

This is where I have to honestly sing the praises of Planned Parenthood. I’d never been in one before, I just had them cataloged somewhere in my head as being an approved of nebulous Good Thing, kind of in the same section as other Good Things I don’t utilize but probably should, like libraries and senior centers.

I’m struggling with how to put this down in a way that doesn’t stray into smug or patronizing, so if you sense that, please discount it. The reality is, these people are doing a great thing and impacting every person that walks through those doors for the better. I received the best medical care I’ve ever known, precisely as I needed it- impersonal but kind, to the point, and blessedly swift. If you’ve never needed their services, I’m glad for you, and I hope you’ll consider donating. If you’ve used their services, then you know, and I hope you’ll consider donating. I know I will, today, and for the rest of my life- because I don’t forget the people that were there when I truly needed them to help me navigate a system I have no handle on- and I want that care to be there for anyone who needs it. Being afraid of your own body is terrifying, and no one should have to live with that as a given.

At all times, I felt safe, protected, and cared for.. and let’s face it, vulnerable is kind of my go to mode in a situation like this one. I had a super early appointment, in my purple hair and acid wash jeans and star wars t shirt, and answered a lot of questions I hadn’t even thought of in years. My examination was over in minutes, and I had the referral that I need for my next stop along with the words I needed in a million billion ways to hear- probably not cancer.

I still have an appointment or two to go, cause ‘probably’ needs to be more like ‘definitely’, but yeah, a huge potentially cancerous weight has been lifted off me. There’s air in the room. And, most of all, if you’re reading this and afraid of your own breasts, you can do this. Go get checked out, make decisions with all the information on the table. Don’t let fear rob you of time, in case it is something that needs treatment.

In a lot of ways, I wasn’t shown how to cope with fear in a good way. I was told that I was too smart to be afraid of the things I was afraid of. Well, this was one time that little mantra didn’t work so well, and I had to take a long, deep soak in a tub of fear.

And you know? It didn’t kill me. I lost some sleep, I found out (not that I didn’t know, but knowing in the mind and knowing in the heart are two different things) that I am surrounded by people who support me and care about me even when things aren’t looking great. I don’t have to deal with fear alone, thinking less of myself, thinking that admitting to it is some kind of flaw.

So, that’s it for now… I hope you horror laughed a few times as we went through here, and that maybe, have a think.

As for me, I’m going to coin flip between packing for our trip to Dragon Thrones and getting a much needed nap.

More and more I’m coming to truly believe that it’s not the people in the place of ultimate power that are the monsters we should be fearing, but the casual indifference of the people who carry out the orders with faces averted.

Example- this week there’s breaking news about the kids kept in completely unacceptable conditions as illegal unaccompanied minors, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Yes… and no.

For every Trump, there’s people walking in and out of those centers, fully aware of how those children are living who both do nothing and say nothing. They are just there to get a paycheck. I’m sure they tell themselves things like they are just working with the tools they have, and the kids are still better off in that center than wandering out in the desert.

And they are both right.. and horribly wrong. But these are the stories you tell yourself.

Think about the last bureaucracy you dealt with that was going to have a major impact on your life. I like doctor’s offices and the Social Security Administration as examples- health and sometimes the means to pay for life. Now, how many people did you run into that were truly there to help and engaged in you as a person to see to it you got what you needed, to give you information on how to navigate the Byzantine systems they have in place versus the ones that just found a reason to swiftly end their specific interaction with you by sending you somewhere else?

There’s a lot of places in this world we only go because we have problems or we need help. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people who genuinely want to help, but I don’t seem to see as many of them in the places where it’s literally life and death situations day after day.

Sadly, in my experience lately, there have been more people who can’t engage as people, but to whom you are just another problem.

I’m going to do my best to refuse to look at people as problems, because I don’t want to be seen as one.

If you’ve been following along with my adventures of late, you know that I have had a hard time finding the right white noise to sleep to.

Well, recently I’ve had the most success with Star Wars- A New Hope. With a storm rolling in and having woken up way too early after going to bed way too late, I decided a nap was definitely in order.

So there I am, tucked comfortably into bed, the opening crawl scrolling up the screen when Rick decides to pull up a pillow and watch awhile.

And speculate. And keep me from napping.

Rick: You know, something’s been bothering me ever since I watched Rogue One.

Me, wearily opening one eye: Oh?

Rick: Yeah… all these guys are wearing the Rebel uniform. So how can they be trying to claim they aren’t a part of the Rebel Alliance?

Me: Maybe it’s the Alderaanian uniform which the Rebels adopted after what happened at Alderaan.

We both think a beat as Vader stomps onwards.

Me: But considering what happened to Alderaan, where the hell did they get all these extra uniforms to outfit the damn Rebellion?

Rick: Maybe that was their diplomatic mission. For all we know, the cargo hold is full of Alderaanian uniforms.

Me, getting out of bed with a sigh: I gotta go type this up or I’ll lose it.

And Rick just laughs. He’s a bad man.

I go back and lay down, movie gets a little further along, to where Aunt Beru is yelling up at Luke to tell Uncle Owen to get a droid that speaks Bocchi.

Me, muzzily from far under the covers: What the hell, it’s the future but they don’t have personal communication devices?

Rick, snickering cause I’m still awake: They have comlinks.

Me: And they aren’t using them why?

Rick: They don’t want to waste their minutes.

Me, getting out of bed with a sigh: This is all your fault.

Rick: You started it!

“Living your best life”, “Living well is the best revenge” and the thousand variations thereof.

There’s a lot of emphasis on living for show in this time of the world, and along with it comes the popular concept of what that is- most of it revolving around friends that serve as one another’s diaries.

Yeah, I don’t have one of those. In fact, I don’t even have anyone in my life that I could call up and say, hey wanna get coffee after four? I used to blame this on the fact that 90% of my relationships are virtual in nature, and then I remembered that even when the people I was closest to WERE local, I saw them maybe every other weekend. Maybe.

It’s not that I don’t love the people in my life and enjoy their company, I very much do. And I miss them when it’s been weeks/months since we’ve come together. It’s that at some point I got tired of the being the resident female who expended the emotional energy to make gatherings happen and I spend a lot of my life inside my own head, doing my own thing. There’s a reason my husband and I can sit in contented silence for hours on end apparently doing nothing- we’re both that way.

And all of that is just fine by me… most of the time. Til I hit ‘evidence’ that this is not the societal norm, that this is not okay and it makes me abnormal, qualifies me for Quasimodo outcast status, and is just wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

But Ari, what does that? you ask. Well, how about any commercial that shows a bunch of ladies out together critiquing clothes? Or guys out having brewskis? Or any family gathering greater than 4 people? (At this point in my strange life, I only have 3 members of my extended family that I interact with on a regular basis, after all). Social media is also a goldmine of all these happy gatherings.

That’s when I understood that the locus of my loneliness wasn’t 100% coming from within. Maybe about 5% of the time I wish I could sit down and talk to someone, and then I usually reach for a technology based connection point.

But the 95% of feeling like I’m isolated or missing out? It comes from outside of myself.. and I don’t see it until I ask myself if I’m truly content being where I am and would I make any kind of change.

I’m crochety and weird and have this delusion that I’m funny… I don’t have energy to expend on a lot of the things popular/social media wants to me to think I should. I have a long history of people who have taken advantage of me and the things I used to do to feel like I was like everyone else.

I’ve come to accept that there is no ‘like everyone else’. I’m just me, and I like me, I like my life, and I like the people that I’ve made welcome in my space. I’m not here to impress people I knew in high school on Instagram. I’m not here to rub in all the great parts of my life that my ex’s are missing.

It’s freeing to be just you, just doing the things you do. Highly recommended.

You know, if that’s what you want.

The conversation of the evening here in Casa de Wellman as we catch the end of The Phantom Menace on TNT-

Rick: Now they don’t have replicators in the Star Wars universe.

Me: No, what’s your point?

Ran into someone I hadn’t seen in well over a decade, and they referred to Rick as my new husband.

I was still chuckling over it later, and informed Rick that after ten years, he’s lost that new husband smell.

Rick: What does new husband smell like?

Me: Hope. Hope and wedding cake.

Two random conversations-

 Lorrie P.: Hi, my name is Lorrie P.. How may I help you?
 Ms. Wellman: Yes, as I already typed in, I need a room in Philadelphia
 Lorrie P.: We do not have timeshares in Philadelphia but you could visit www.blarriott.com to see what hotels there are.
 Ms. Wellman: …
 Ms. Wellman: why would I do that?
 Ms. Wellman: are you just like aggressively trying not to be helpful?
 Lorrie P.: No, not at all.
 Lorrie P.: The Click to Chat option is here to assist you with navigation of our website, to answer questions and to provide instruction. This being the case, we are unable to process any transactions.
 Ms. Wellman: Golly gee, I’m so glad I pay you guys all this money. It feels so very worthwhile that I get to enjoy this concierge service as a benefit
 Lorrie P.: I can surely look up rates for you
 Lorrie P.: When are you looking to travel
 Ms. Wellman: No thanks, I can google that for myself just fine. Thanks for reinforcing the complete lack of value to doing anything remotely like interacting with people, once again.
 Ms. Wellman: of course, you’re probably a bot anyway.
 Ms. Wellman: O irony.
 Lorrie P.: Wow!
 Ms. Wellman: I know. I, too, find it shocking.
 Lorrie P.: You are welcome to call in that is the best interaction you can get.
 Ms. Wellman: Oho! You won’t trick me that way twice! That was last time!

I disconnected. Can’t wait for my survey.

Then, there was this… placed an order with Hipotle to celebrate my epic laziness AND their new free delivery function. Imagine my surprise when my delivery guy was still ‘Heading to Restaurant’ at the estimated time of delivery. So I called, and after getting nowhere with phone support guy, went to Contact Us on the website.

I entered this-
Still shows heading to restaurant. Now 10 minutes late. Called support and they were super rude. So much for delivery with you guys.

I got this-

Ms,
I’m sorry we let you down. We can do better, I would love to have you back on our dime. I’ll only need your postal address to send you a free-burrito cards (good for any main menu item). Thanks for reaching out to us!

Sincerely,
T

Customer Care Coordinator
Hipotle Mexican Grill

I replied with this-

Hi “T”-

One of the fun things about being me and Rick is that when you wake up every damn day of your life at 4.30 for work, you tend to do that when you AREN’T working as well.

So yesterday, when we were both awake long before we wanted to be, I groaned due to my stomach being acidy per usual.

Rick- Why don’t you take some pepcid?

Me- We ran out like three days ago and it’s not like I can go hit Target right now.

Rick (giggling in the way that only big guys can and eyeing my unclad state)- Well, you could… I’m sure they’d be surprised.

Me- And I bet I wouldn’t have to pay for it. And they’d believe me when I said Oh golly gosh gee, would you look at that, I completely forgot my wallet.

It’s always good to start the day with a laugh.

It’s only June and I’m already sick of politicking. It’s gonna be a long, long year and a half.

I’m tired of the ‘give me money’ and ‘bad big corporations’ and ‘random thing you think so of course you have to vote for me’ nonsense… and it’s only June!

Every single one of the candidates throwing themselves out there is doing it WRONG. I don’t want to hear about how we need to break up Facebook/Google/Amazon/Walmart or build a wall or whatever slogan of the minute we’ve got going right now. I don’t care to hear about your ten point plan that doesn’t include me or the people I care about. I don’t want to hear about how great you are.

Show me.

I want to see someone build an app that shows me how I can feed a family of four in my local area without shopping at Walmart.

I want a hotline to help connect people to careers and support structures that they may not have thought of, and I want to share that number everywhere I can think of so no one has to accept a job at Walmart.

I want an app that lets me donate food that my family won’t be using to people that can.

I want a set of online classes to learn about what I can realistically do to offer support to the causes I care about.

I want to know more about how to build a tiny library or pantry to help my immediate community in need in a real and tangible way.

Use your campaign donations to do all of that, and you’ve got my vote… because you’ve shown me you truly care about people and want to make the little differences that mean big differences.