Keep Canceling the Appointment

I kept canceling the appointment.

Not once. Three times. Maybe four.

I canceled it before my trip to St. Lucia. I told myself I didn't want to carry bad news onto a plane to see family I only get to see once a year. That made sense. That sounded responsible.

I canceled it before a big speech. I told myself I needed a clear head, not a result sitting in my chest while I stood in front of a room full of women. That made sense too.

The irony is almost too much. The talk was Breaking Your Agreement With Fear.

I canceled again after that. And again after that. Every single time, there was a reason. A good one. A reasonable one. The kind of reason that sounds responsible right up until you say it out loud and actually listen to what you just said.

Fear, wearing a calendar as a disguise.

What Fear Actually Sounds Like

Fear rarely announces itself as fear. It shows up disguised as logistics.

"I just don't have time right now."

"I'll do it after this trip."

"This isn't a good week."

"Let me get through this next thing first."

Every one of those statements can be true. And every one of them can also be fear, fully dressed up and walking around pretending to be a scheduling conflict.

I'm not alone in this, not even close. A 2026 Aflac survey found that 59% of Americans skipped a recommended preventive screening, and 68% of Gen Z women admitted to avoiding one entirely. Globally, the 2026 Hologic Global Women's Health Index found that over half of women and girls aged 15 and older, an estimated 1.5 billion women, weren't tested for cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, or STIs in the past year.

Fear, inconvenience, and distrust keep people from preventive care even as health risks climb. That's not a personal failing. That's a pattern, and it's a big one.

The appointment I kept postponing was a DEXA scan, a bone density screening, paired with my annual mammogram. Routine. Quick. Nothing invasive. What it was, was a doorway to information I might not want. A number. A result. Something that, once said out loud, couldn't be unsaid.

So I didn't open the door. I just kept moving the doorway further down the calendar.

Naming It

The turning point wasn't dramatic. There was no single moment of clarity, no movie-worthy realization.

It was simply this: I noticed the pattern. Every time the appointment came up, I found a reason to push it. And the reasons were starting to repeat, which meant they weren't really reasons. They were a script.

Naming it looked like saying, out loud, to myself: I am scared of what this might say. That's why I keep canceling it.

For some people, this is the easy part. They know exactly what they're avoiding and why. For others, naming it takes longer, because the fear has been hiding behind "logistics" for so long that it no longer feels like fear at all. Either way, this is where it starts. You can't break an agreement you haven't admitted you made.

Breaking It

Breaking the agreement with fear didn't mean the fear disappeared. It meant I stopped letting the fear make my decisions.

I rescheduled. Then I actually went.

I booked both appointments back to back, the DEXA at 8:30, the mammogram at 9:40. By 9am, both were done.

And here's what surprised me most: it was nothing like what I'd built up in my mind. The team was warm. There was laughter. Real conversation. The mammogram, which is usually uncomfortable at best, became something closer to a good visit with people who made me feel cared for, not just processed.

All those months of avoidance, and the appointment itself took less time than my morning prayer.

The Results

The mammogram came back clear. No malignancy, same as every year before.

The DEXA scan brought the real surprise. Two years earlier, my bone density results had been more serious. This time, the numbers had moved in the right direction, significantly. Two years of strength training, dietary changes, and a whole lot of faith had done what I'd been praying they would.

I sat with that for a moment. All those months of avoidance, and what waited on the other side wasn't bad news. It was proof that the work, and the prayers, had been working.

Voicing It

This is the part most people skip.

Getting the test done is private. Nobody has to know. Writing about it is different.

I've taught this framework for years. I still avoided my own appointment for months.

What This Means for You

If you have an appointment you've been avoiding, whether it's a screening, a follow-up, a scan, or a conversation with a doctor you've been putting off, ask yourself honestly: is the reason you keep giving really the reason?

Or is it fear, wearing a calendar as a disguise?

Sometimes what's waiting on the other side of that fear isn't the bad news you imagined. Sometimes it's proof of how far you've already come.

And if it is the news you've been dreading? Does staying in the dark make it any easier? Worry doesn't shrink the problem. Delay just magnifies the fear, while the thing itself stays exactly the same size.

You'll never know which one it is unless you go.

Practical Takeaway

Look at your own calendar right now. Is there an appointment you've rescheduled more than once? Write down the real reason, the honest one, not the polished one. Then book it for this week.

You're not the only one who's been putting it off. More than 40% of women, roughly 70 million, skip or delay important preventive screenings. The appointment on your calendar isn't just yours to keep. It's part of a much bigger pattern, and you get to be the one who breaks it.

This Conversation Is Bigger Than One Appointment

This same pattern, naming what we avoid, breaking the agreement, using our voice anyway, shows up everywhere. In difficult conversations. In asking for what we need. In addressing burnout before it becomes a resignation letter.

I bring this framework into women's events and organizations through Breaking Your Agreement With Fear, in a way that's honest, practical, and occasionally funny, because sometimes the only way through fear is to laugh at how creative we get when we're avoiding something.

Book a keynote or workshop: trulyflavius.com/booktrulyflavius

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