I first met Mary Ann in 1999…she was my NP through UCDavis. I was a Medi-Cal patient. I was pregnant with my 2nd child.
This is a bit of an awkward review for me, because it deals with issues I’m not sure about. Honestly, it isn’t even so much about the business as it is the woman.
At any rate, I was 22 years old when I first met Mary Ann. Since i was 15 years old i had what is, very apparently, a common disease called fibrocystic breast disease. It is painful. It is scary. It is confusing.
Fibrocystic breast disease caused huge masses to form in my breasts. I had 3 on each breast…and they were huge. When they were not flared up i was a B cup. When they were flared up i was a D cup. And they hurt…they hurt so much that I couldn’t manage anything more than a fast walk.
When I was 20-years old working at a horticultural nursery one of the masses busted. Black fluid started leaking from my nipple. I went to a doctor (private insurance) and was told it was excess hormones, and i just had to live with this disease for the rest of my life.
So I did. I went about my life cautiously. I didn’t hug people, i didn’t run, I didn’t eat or drink caffeine or enjoy chocolate…because apparently those are triggers. None of it helped, and i just figured that this pain was normal, and i should remain distant.
Queue to my present life and i see how the omission of such a low-level, pervasive pain impacts a human being.
You see, when i saw Mary Ann for my OB visit when i was pregnant with my 2nd child I told her about the fibrocystic breast disease. I was only semi-flared at the time. Only in a minor amount of pain. She listened to me very conscientiously, and proceeded with my exam quite professionally. As she finished her exam, a heat flared across my chest.
I kid you not. The last two seconds that her hands were conducting my breast exam were the last two seconds that i suffered from fibrocystic breast disease. I didn’t realize it at the time, i was too embarrassed because my nipples turned hard as rock and my entire skin contracted. It certainly was not sexual, what I felt, but it manifested that way…at least to the 22-year-old me.
Things have changed a bit. I don’t have fibrocystic breast disease anymore. And i thank Mary Ann for that. I didn’t change anything about my lifestyle or my diet. I simply talked to her for a few minutes and honestly assumed that i’d be disregarded as a Medi-cal patient. Instead, i was healed of a pervasive disease.
Honestly, i still don’t get it. Still don’t understand. And still attribute it to the woman who did the healing.