Sooey Says

"Who's there?"

"Mammogram."

I went for my first mammogram a couple of weeks ago after putting it off for a decade or so because I'm small of breast and I'd heard too much about the unmannered way in which mammograms are done to be eager to have one.

In fact, now that I've actually had one, I wonder if they mightn't cause breast cancer so unnatural is the mammogrammatical process.

I know, I know - how dare I criticize the sacred mammogram what saves countless lives yaddayaddablahblah. How dare I not have one for a decade while insisting instead that my doctor perform a proper breast exam. Because I didn't just not have a mammogram, oh no, I told my doctor straight up that I wasn't going to have one. And she sighed for ten years in a row and said how stupid it was that I wouldn't go for a mammogram and then she'd perform a proper breast exam and give me the cancer all-clear for another year.

Anyway, I'm going to be fifty next year, so I decided to bite the bullet (literally) and get the thing done so they could get my mammogram baseline started. Oh, and I'm on the pill, too, which is pretty much unheard of at almost fifty so if I don't finish this entry you'll know that stroke finally caught up with me and I'm getting what I deserve for ignoring all medical convention (and menopause) and staying on the pill way past my due date. If I can find a willing doctor, I'm planning on staying on it until I'm a hundred, too. What the hell? I'm already fifteen years past when I should have switched to something called "hormone therapy" that costs ten times as much as the pill to do essentially the same thing.

So I left home without deodorant or perfume and headed to the Riverside Hospital for my mammogram. After a brief wait, I was ushered into the mammogram room and so it began. I had to relax my shoulders while having my little breasts pulled away from my body and squished between surfaces so a picture could be taken which, of course, didn't give the information required the first time and so the process had to be done all over again. And again. Again. One more time. And then I was sent home, wondering all the while if my breast would ever reattach itself to my body. I also wondered how the hell women with implants fare without popping a leak.

Then, about a week later, I got a call, "You need to come back for another mammogram and an ultrasound. The doctor has concerns about the pictures of your left breast".

Now, this is when most women start to worry, but I really didn't because I've had such thorough breast exams every year by my doctor or one of her student doctors that I knew it simply wasn't possible they'd missed something as specific to the breast exam as breast cancer over and over and over. What worried me was having to have the mammogram again because I simply don't believe they can be good for our breasts. They may save lives, but in the meantime, they're pretty hard on breast tissue and I'm not sure why the technology can't be refined somewhat so that our breasts don't have to be stretched away from our bodies as if they are separate entities and flattened between surfaces as it they aren't full of sensitive nerve endings. Over and over and over again until the technology works the way it's supposed to and takes the right picture.

But no woman in her right mind is going to say, "Nah, I'd rather risk the possibility of breast cancer, thanks", because when you're sitting in the waiting room for your first mammogram you have an hour or two to re-assess your life in the event you should get some bad news and you almost always wish you'd started the mammogram process earlier, so sick would you feel if you'd neglected to get a jump on breast cancer through sheer laziness, no matter how much you doubted the whole process. Otherwise, I'd work less and travel more and give up worrying about my retirement - which I'd kind of decided a couple of months ago anyway when the U.S. economy tanked and I realized we'd be next and why try at all when our governments can't even be bothered to regulate the financial industry on which all our retirement savings depend.

So I went back for more pictures and then a two hour wait for an ultrasound. Now, I don't mean to whine, but I don't get paid if I'm not at work and I know that's an anomaly in Ottawa so I'm thinking of having buttons made putting it right out there for all healthcare practitioners (i.e. doctors) to see: "Not being paid because I'm waiting for you". But women aren't allowed to complain about anything breast cancer related because we're supposed to be grateful for every little innovation that still doesn't save our breasts but does save our lives so who am I to complain about losing half a day's pay to have my breast stretched and flattened and then smeared with gel while a cold implement is run over it and a technician studies a screen looking for signs of breast cancer.

As good luck would have it, though, the ultrasound, according to the technician, revealed nothing more than fat globules that might have been mistaken for suspicious lumps and so I got dressed, only to be told to undress again in order that a doctor could re-do the ultrasound and take a closer look at the screen to get a better gander at those fat globules that might or might not be suspicious looking enough to possibly be cancer.

Well, he squinted and adjusted his bi-focals and squinted some more and moved the implement around and squinted some more and finally motioned to the screen to have the technician take a closer look before decreeing all was well, that the fat globules were mere fat globules, and no longer suspicious looking, or at least, not suspicious looking enough to be cancer. Then he left the room and the technician left the room and I got dressed thinking to myself how interesting it all was that at no time did any medical personnel actually perform a manual breast exam.

So now I'm left wondering two things: Is it possible that by the time a medical professional reaches a certain expertise in terms of equipment, he can no longer remember how to perform a manual breast exam? And, if an ultrasound is necessary to better detect breast cancer, why are we bothering with mammograms, let alone manual breast exams?