I was stumped by my funk last week. What did I have to complain about?

I’d had my week of checkups, and was told that everything was okay. I’d been felt up by two female doctors and a resident, another woman had squeezed me into the mammography machine, and I’d been assured that lymph nodes show up all the time on mammograms.

Somehow I wasn’t comforted.

Then I realized I don’t trust mammograms. My primary tumor never showed up on one, though an offending lymph node did and was promptly labeled benign by the radiologist. (Maybe I should have sued…)

I wasn’t getting a blood test this week of checkups, or an MRI. If those two tests are negative, I feel secure for a while. But without them, I don’t.

I feel fine. I’m getting stronger—I’ve even done a few pushups! My brain is waking up to the fact that it doesn’t work as well as it used to. With the history of Alzheimer’s in my father’s family, that’s worrisome, but I can always grow more neurons by learning to dance or studying a language.

At some point, I have to get used to not knowing for sure. I guess that a year after the end of treatment for breast cancer is just too soon.