Maria Linn

This is probably TMI, so you may want to avert your eyes now and move onto some more appropriate, impersonal, less cancery corner of the internet while you have the chance. This is the sort of thing I should be writing about in the top secret Book of Doom (our nickname for the black leather journal the nurse navigator gave me when I first got diagnosed and where I did my therapeutic cancer writing), not here, in the Book of Life, for everyone to see.

Nevertheless, it’s a win that deserves commemorating, so here goes.

Today, I had my third ever mammogram. Once you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer, any subsequent mammograms are diagnostic, meaning they give you the results then and there, no waiting for a letter in the mail.

It was a nerve-wrackingly slow forty-five minute wait between the scan and the results, during which I tried to stay calm and positive but still brace for the worst. What they say about the third time being the charm ended up being true for me, and this one came back normal.

That Women’s Imaging Center holds some unpleasant memories for me: bad news, pitying looks, long biopsies, and painful pre-op wiring procedures. I can’t help but approach it with fear and dread.

But today, for the first time, I walked out of that building like:

(H/T to my friend and colleague Elizabeth, finder of the most awesome gifs, for sending me this, which is perfect on many levels.)

Hang on a sec, guys. I need to have a word with a certain body part.

Right boob, I know we’ve had our differences. There were times I didn’t appreciate you and wished you were more this, that, or the other thing. But I was so wrong about you.

You are a complete rock star, and you kick ass at being cancer free. I love you, and I hope you stay with me all the rest of my days. Whatever you do, don’t go all rogue and become good at growing cancer cells like that pesky left breast did. Driving back to work, Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me” came on the radio, and all I could think about was you.

So tonight, I raise a glass in your honor. I sing your song aloud until I’m hoarse. I hold up my lighter to you till my thumb burns.

Rock on, right boob, rock on.