Card Carrying Member

The other day I got a piece of mail from the health center. Big surprise! I get mail from the health center almost every day. It’s not typically mail that makes me happy. Usually, it’s mail that makes me kiss another month of retirement goodbye. But this one was different. This one felt like a credit card inside. And wouldn’t that be awesome – not only do I owe them an arm and a leg (and don’t forget the left boob I already gave as a down payment!) but then they could charge me interest on the balance each month…what’s the going rate now? Something like 46%.

Anyway. It wasn’t a credit card., but it WAS a card. It is a “Device Identification Card”. I had no idea this was coming or what it was. I read all the tiny print on both sides of the little plastic card and it slowly sunk in. I can’t pass a metal detector test at the airport, at the courthouse or anywhere else. This is my “get out of jail free” card. Or, as I like to call it, my little DIC.

So now I’m wondering, could I smuggle weapons,  – or even better, a titanium flask of red wine – onto a plane or into the courthouse? I mean, really, I could, couldn’t I? I go through the metal detector. It goes off, sirens blaring all over the place and I just flash them my little DIC and tell them, “It’s ok, it’s just the tissue expander in my chest.” And if that doesn’t make them back off, I can give them a pathetic, watery-eyed look and tell them it’s because I had breast cancer.

Yes. The word cancer can be a get out of jail free card all by itself. And you thought I wasn’t learning anything new these days!

Seriously, though, there’s got to be some sort of silver lining for having to have this metal torture device inside me! The first time I went back to the plastic surgeon I told him I was scared of how much really tight scar tissue was building up inside me. He was worried at first but then I ran my fingers down the length of the places inside me that were hard as a rock and hurt like hell and he very nonchalantly told me that those weren’t scars, those are the edges of the tissue expander. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Over the past month, though, I’ve gotten used to it. It’s no longer such a pain, but it does create it’s fair share of discomfort. Have you ever seen a bench vice? You know how you can rotate the handle to make the two plates squeeze in toward each other? Yeah, it’s like that only in reverse, so that they’re as wide as possible. What I worry about is: if the expander fails or is removed, does the rest of my chest just crumble and fall in? And fall into where?

Even bigger on my list of concerns – what happens at the airport when I fail the metal detector test and I’ve forgotten my little DIC? Do they do a more thorough pat down? And how exactly will that go?

“Excuse me, sir (or ma’am), what exactly do you think is in there? Are you looking for my car keys? Seriously, if you’d just take your hands off my breasts for a minute, I'll get out my little DIC! I’ll even put it in your hands!”

And suddenly, I see myself on the No-Fly List. Which is fine, because clearly I won’t be jetting off anywhere any time soon – at least not until I’ve paid off the balances on the first 672 pieces of mail the health center sent me.