The summer between eighth grade and ninth grade, my mom took my sister and me on a trip. In our Cutlass Ciera Wagon along with her friend Jan and Jan’s daughter Amy, we went from Grand Ledge, Michigan to the Canadian Rockies. Camping along the way; we panned for gold, hiked in Jackson Hole, toured the Tetons, saw Wall Drug and Mount Rushmore, got up close and personal with a moose in Yellowstone, and slept outside under a harvest moon in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
When we got home, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 41 years old. The age I turned today.
I look like my Mom. In many ways, I act like my Mom. I gave birth to two kids; just like she did. My sister and Maybelle’s birthdays are one day apart. I even had the same labors she had; starting off not with contractions but with water breaking and lasting a long, long time. I have hoped, for the past 25 years but more feverently since becoming a parent; that despite being so similar physically I do not have the part of my Mom’s DNA that went haywire and let her body grow cancer cells.
This is it. This is the year she got cancer. In 1983, when my mom was 41, mammograms were not routine. Today, annual mammograms are recommended for women when they turn 40. I argued for a few years that Family History should qualify me to begin earlier, but no one bought it.
So I lied. For the past five or so years, I have been feeling ‘breast pain’ or a ‘suspicious lump’ at regularly scheduled twelve month intervals. Sometimes the insurance paid for them, and sometimes they denied them. I didn’t care. I wanted a good baseline and history to know if anything changed.
When I went this year {courtesy of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, now that I am Officially Old Enough To Be Screened} I was the last patient of the day at the Betty Ford Diagnostic Breast Center. The technician asked me how I was doing. I said: that I was scared and I knew I was the last person of the day but I really needed her to please take the time to do a good job because THIS IS THE YEAR and she can’t miss ANYTHING.
I figured Betty Ford would be OK with that.
And she did do a good job. She squished and squashed when she took the picture she said DON’T BREATHE and told me to take Tylenol when I got home because if anything was there; she was going to find it. Since I had been there twelve months ago with breast pain (ahem) they had my images stored. She showed me last year’s picture, and compared it to this year’s picture. They looked the same. Of course, a radiologist had yet to read it but seeing it with my own eyes was a tremendous comfort.
Don’t be scared of mammograms. Be scared of cancer.
Mammograms are not that bad. You get a wristband. You get a Pink Privacy Folder for your information. You change into an attractive, flattering hospital gown in a little locker room, and get a scrunchy wristband thing with a key to your locker where your clothes hang out while you are getting your picture taken. You can’t wear deodorant to the appointment, but when you’re done they even give you deodorant wipes. It is calm. It is respectful.
I got my letter the following week, and I read it again today; on my 41st Birthday:
We are pleased to inform you that the result of your recent mammogram is normal.
I made it. I made it another year. I made it to 41. I made it.
