If he finds something, it was there several weeks ago. If you decline to have him look for it, you'll never know it's there, but still have the dread that it probably is. But he won't be able to say that it's there, and won't be able to offer you much in the way of a remedy.

This is just me...I can steel myself against the various intrusions and pain and discomfort with weird body reposes that sometimes comes with procedures. I don't like it any more than the next person, but I just go to my Nothing Box and endure it. I know I'll be home later that day, the next if not.

You can inure yourself to the pokes and jabs by pinching yourself at times, thinking at the same time that it's a needle. Eventually it just doesn't matter because your brain will overwrite it as an innocuous thing that passes. When the time comes to get needles, it just won't seem so bad. Mind over matteer. But I gotta know. Even if it's the dreaded C word, I wanna know. I can stew all I want later, but I want to know, and I want my caregiver to know...and to offer me a path forward. It might be a shorter path than I had wanted, but it's a roadmap for me.

My angiogram two years ago was through the wrist. The worst part of the procedure, for me personally, was the chill from the operatory space. By the time I had to get up and onto a wheelchair to be taken out, I was vibrating and quite tense. The orderly thoughtfully had a heated blanket to put around me, which was as welcome as the first sunlit dawn after several weeks of rain.

You grit your teeth and you git 'er dun. Try to stay in the driver's seat if you can. Make things happen, including your participation in your own health.