Breasts Unsquished, Fingers Uncrossed

I got a call Thursday morning from the radiology center where I was all set to do my annual, fear-inducing mammogram on Friday. They've had some kind of flood (we are rather far from Iowa so I don't quite get it) and the mammogram equipment is soggy, so the woman on the phone was calling to reschedule me. For some time in August.

"Nope," I snapped, "not gonna work. I had breast cancer and I'm not going to wait that long for my check up."

It's moments like that, when you hear your voice sounding like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist, that make a gal realize just how tense we get around mammo time.

I got a new appointment on the first of July.

Lots of book doings and more coming up. Here's a link to an interview I did with my old friends at GMA.

TALKING HEAD HERE

Breasts Squished, Fingers Crossed

Once upon a time (four years ago to be exact) I was absolutely fearless about getting a mammogram. True, it’s no fun to have your breasts squashed into a device seemingly invented by the same people who invented the panini maker, but I was never worried about getting a mammogram.

Because, you see, I knew I was never going to get breast cancer. Nobody in my family had had it, I didn’t know anybody who did, and in my naïve opinion at the time, it just wasn’t going to be “my” cancer.

But sometime between hearing a doctor say, “hmmm, I don’t like the looks of that,” a biopsy, and a phone call reporting back the lab results, I learned how wrong I was.

Luckily, it was an early catch, as they described it. Very small, no lymph nodes involved. Lumpectomy, chemo, radiation, done. Since then, so far, so good.

But Friday is Mammogram Day, and that means this week there’s a kind of white noise in my head that will get louder and louder until, Lord willing, I get the all clear signal. The noise is like a million tiny voices endlessly saying "what if what if what if what if?"

By Friday I will have to answer back, "Stop it. It's going to be fine."

Most of the time, I don’t worry about breast cancer coming back. But there is that Moment of Truth when you’re standing with your breast flattened between cold plates of glass, your heart pounding, as you try to read the expression on the face of the technician running the machine. And you realize how close you are to being terrified.

Not that I wait for the annual Squishorama to check myself out. I’m pretty much like a fifteen year old boy when it comes to feeling myself up. But I never felt the first tumor, even when I knew it was in there, somewhere, and when, the next year, I had what turned out to be a benign tumor in the other breast, I didn’t feel that either, so my frequent self-exams are not much comfort.

I’m not exactly dreading the mammogram, and I’m not looking forward to being reassured that all is fine, either. I guess I just resent that ever since having breast cancer, there is this thing that looms over my head.

In my book, I write about how difficult it is to find yourself forced out of your warm and happy home in Healthyville, exiled to Breastcancerworld. And even if you’re just there for a short stay, you don’t quite get back to your old neighborhood in Healthyville. You’re kind of camping out on the wrong side of the tracks, with the other breast cancer hobos who just want to get back to their real homes.

That annual mammogram is just another reminder that once you’ve had breast cancer, you can’t exactly go home again.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, ok?