I know. Adverse times. Pandemic. The health care system stretched to its limits.

I also know…

I am not the center of the universe.

Things happen.

Human error is real.

As a cancer survivor, I am familiar with a broad range of appointments. When it comes to doctors, specialists, nurses, blood draws, egos, and tests performed, as well as getting the results from those tests, I’ve felt triumphant, frustrated, and in despair.

Due to chronic back issues and lower, right flank pain, I saw a nurse practitioner, to rule out anything hinky. I made a telehealth appointment first, for much of the intake stuff. And then, the face-to-face followed two weeks later.

After the Covid-19 protocol of ringing the doorbell, waiting for the door to unlock, swiping my forehead for a temperature reading, I waited in the waiting room. Nothing unusual there.

As I’m filling out forms, I’m notified another patient will be seen first, ahead of me. Okay.

Once I finally got in the exam room, the nurse practitioner went through my forms, plugging in the additional information on a computer. She asked me questions, regarding the forms I filled out not once, but twice, once, in the telehealth appointment, two weeks before, and now during this face-to-face appointment.

One question, in particular, caught my attention.

The nurse practitioner asks me, “Would you like to schedule a mammogram?”

I responded, as the breast cancer survivor who listed both my diagnosis and my bilateral mastectomy on the forms, twice: “Well, that would be kind of difficult. There’s nothing there to put in the machine.”

Then, she giggles. “Oh, that’s right. You have it written down. Sorry. I should have seen it.”

It’s in this moment I lose all confidence I’m going to have a thorough exam.

She checks my heart and breathing. I’m still in my clothes. I don’t even need to change into one of those paper gowns. That was strange. She looks into my ears and eyes with one of those lighted instruments. She has me press on her hands with my hand. I raise my legs and bring them down again.

And just like that, we’re done. Maybe the exam took five minutes. Maybe.

I left the appointment, but not before paying a $50 copay for the pleasure of the experience.

Yay.

Look, I know the medical community is taxed with the pandemic. And yes, to be fair, the nurse practitioner and everyone working in that office were masked up (double masks, with one of those windshield head gear screens, to boot). They all made sure to follow social distance and handwashing protocols. I did not feel unsafe.

But I did feel unseen and unheard. That was not accomplished by pandemic-related issues. That was accomplished by the medical professional, failing to read (and heed) the extensive forms I filled out twice.

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill here? Perhaps, not.

Things could have been much more devastating if I were in a different emotional state. I have accepted my breast-less chest. I have had time to embrace my newer normal physicality.

But what if I hadn’t accepted and embraced my situation? What if I was distraught and raw, struggling to process the reality of my body, with the backdrop of life-threatening cancer?

This nurse practitioner’s innocent, but mistaken mammogram question could have sent me hurling into grief and negative body image issues. It could have triggered, maybe, recrimination of “I should have gotten more mammograms, or gotten them sooner; it’s all my fault.”

Here’s a dirty little secret: even within the context of cancer, there still can exist a shaming toward the diagnosed person facing it. Therefore, in my subjective opinion, sensitivity and caution must be practiced, just as strongly as examining and treating the patient.

I am not a medical professional. I am a patient.

But, as that patient, I am entitled to have my medical information, read, heard, and responded to accordingly. This nurse practitioner meticulously plugged my information into her computer, all while failing to read what she typed… (twice).

I’m not asking for miracles; I’m asking that the medical community do the bare minimum here: READ THE DIRECTIONS!

Is that really too much to ask for, pandemic or no pandemic?

Copyright © 2021 by Sheryle Cruse