Carole's First Mammogram
Jun. 21st, 2011 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayfurrTomorrow is kind of a special day.
I wish I could say it's the day we cash in a $5,000,000 lottery ticket, going public after carefully consulting with our investment advisors and the makers of Hostess Sno-Balls (I plan on investing heavily in Hostess Sno-Balls when my financial ship comes in). But it's nothing so cheery.
Instead, my wife Carole is going in for her first-ever mammogram. She turned 40 in October of last year and according to a lot of recommendations, it's time for her first, er, "boob-squishing". I wince at that term, but Carole's used it now and then after hearing from people who've already had the procedure. Apparently, in terms of dignified, heart-warming experiences that you'll just want to rush home and scrapbook about, a mammogram ranks right up there with a really thorough search/grope by a gang of bored TSA agents.
Or so I'm told. I've never had one. As a male, the odds are against my needing a mammogram, but on the other hand, I do, um, feel around now and then. (By "feel around", I mean self-examination of my own chest. Get your minds out of the gutter.) Mortality among men with breast cancer is much, much higher, percentage-wise, than it is among women, and I believe a lot of that is because men simply don't expect to get it and don't take appropriate action if and when they do feel something out of the ordinary. There's probably also a certain element of not wanting to be seen having a good self-grope. Very un-manly. You just know that someone would barge in without knocking and then it'd be all over your neighborhood. Before you'd know it rumors be circulating that you were dancing in your tighty-whities and lip-synching "I Touch Myself" by the DiVinyls.
Hell. Do it anyway, guys. Chicks dig sensitive guys.
(Right? Right?)
Carole has no family history of breast cancer. She's not on any kind of hormone replacements. She doesn't drink a lot. She hasn't been exposed to a lot of radiation. She's not currently using birth control pills. And so on. And so on. In fact, the only three risk factors that she can definitely be said to have are:
But she's going in for her mammogram anyway.
Most women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of the disease. Carole is not immune just because she's never had a blood relative with breast cancer. That we know of. Remember, time was women who died of breast cancer simply were described as having suffered from a 'long illness'. People just didn't talk about it. For all we know, every one of Carole's female ancestors prior to her grandparents' generation had breast cancer. Unlikely, but possible. So we're not going to gamble with her life -- tomorrow morning, 8:30 sharp, she'll find out first-hand what a mammogram is really like.
I'll be saying few extra prayers tonight and hoping for the best.
I wish I could say it's the day we cash in a $5,000,000 lottery ticket, going public after carefully consulting with our investment advisors and the makers of Hostess Sno-Balls (I plan on investing heavily in Hostess Sno-Balls when my financial ship comes in). But it's nothing so cheery.
Instead, my wife Carole is going in for her first-ever mammogram. She turned 40 in October of last year and according to a lot of recommendations, it's time for her first, er, "boob-squishing". I wince at that term, but Carole's used it now and then after hearing from people who've already had the procedure. Apparently, in terms of dignified, heart-warming experiences that you'll just want to rush home and scrapbook about, a mammogram ranks right up there with a really thorough search/grope by a gang of bored TSA agents.
Or so I'm told. I've never had one. As a male, the odds are against my needing a mammogram, but on the other hand, I do, um, feel around now and then. (By "feel around", I mean self-examination of my own chest. Get your minds out of the gutter.) Mortality among men with breast cancer is much, much higher, percentage-wise, than it is among women, and I believe a lot of that is because men simply don't expect to get it and don't take appropriate action if and when they do feel something out of the ordinary. There's probably also a certain element of not wanting to be seen having a good self-grope. Very un-manly. You just know that someone would barge in without knocking and then it'd be all over your neighborhood. Before you'd know it rumors be circulating that you were dancing in your tighty-whities and lip-synching "I Touch Myself" by the DiVinyls.
Hell. Do it anyway, guys. Chicks dig sensitive guys.
(Right? Right?)
Carole has no family history of breast cancer. She's not on any kind of hormone replacements. She doesn't drink a lot. She hasn't been exposed to a lot of radiation. She's not currently using birth control pills. And so on. And so on. In fact, the only three risk factors that she can definitely be said to have are:
- never having had children
- growing older
- being female
But she's going in for her mammogram anyway.
Most women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of the disease. Carole is not immune just because she's never had a blood relative with breast cancer. That we know of. Remember, time was women who died of breast cancer simply were described as having suffered from a 'long illness'. People just didn't talk about it. For all we know, every one of Carole's female ancestors prior to her grandparents' generation had breast cancer. Unlikely, but possible. So we're not going to gamble with her life -- tomorrow morning, 8:30 sharp, she'll find out first-hand what a mammogram is really like.
I'll be saying few extra prayers tonight and hoping for the best.
