Bosoms and Vises...They Call This Medicine? (Health and Safety in General)

Member Name: cbpotts

Product:	Health and Safety in General
Date:	23/08/01 (272 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Early detection and treatment or just peace of mind that all is well.

Disadvantages: ouch.

I turned 40 this past April. I received the obligatory Depends from my younger sister as a birthday present, as well as the "over the hill" cards and balloons from others. Wisely, my husband (at that time my fiancé) avoided all such garbage and treated me like a queen.

Imagine my surprise and pleasure when I received a card from my "female" doctor. Pleasure turned to fear, paranoia and horror when I realized that it was not simply a birthday card celebrating one more turn around the sun, but was in fact an invitation for me to visit their office to receive my "base mammogram." If you've ever done any home renovation, the parallel is frighteningly similar, though in reverse. In the same way someone would take before, in process, and after pictures of a renovation project, the base mammogram provides the "what your bosom looks like before you begin falling to pieces as gravity starts working" picture and each one thereafter provides the in process shots.

Since I do want to take care of my body, especially since hubby and I hope to have kids before too long, I did a little research into mammograms to try and offset the horror stories I’ve heard over the years.

Mammogram Joke
~~
How to prepare for a mammogram: Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast between the door and the main box. Invite the strongest looking stranger you can find to slam the door shut as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn't effective enough.
~~

Unfortunately, the facts I found out in my research did little to lessen my dread towards the testing process. One page that I visited showed a smiling woman standing next to an electronic vice. All she needed was leather and a surrounding castle dungeon and the picture of torture would have been complete. In case you think I'm being melodrama
tic about the vise part of this, the piece is actually called the compressor. Compare the definitions:

Vise: to hold, force, or squeeze with or as if with a vise
Compress: to press or squeeze together

I rest my case.

Knowing that many medical instruments look a lot worse than they actually are sometimes, I read the article about how a mammogram is done. The information stated, and I quote, "This is a paddle-like device that compresses or squeezes your breast into something that resembles a pancake or a flat object." At this point in the researching, I was glad that I was doing the work from my computer at home because my hands had unconsciously gone to my bosom, protecting what hadn't even been threatened yet. Not that I want to get intensely personal here, but I'm not what you'd call small chested. Growing up I never was the brunt of any jokes about acorns or knots on wood for breasts. So, when I think about compressing my poor bosom into something that looks like a pancake, I get pretty distressed. I like to bake and have made many apple pies, including the crusts. I've had balls of crust that are approximately breast sized and rolled them into pancake height disks. I seriously doubt my breast will be able to squish that much. I'm thinking I don't even want to find out if it can.

**But seriously folks**
All that being said, it's time to put the jesting aside. Mammograms should be an essential part of a woman's physical routine once she turns 40. The American Cancer Society estimates that in the US, over 175,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 43,300 will die from it. Breast cancer accounts for 29% of all cancers in women, and one out of eight will develop breast cancer at some point in her life. Breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death of adult women under 54 years of age and the second most common cause after 54. While mam
mography is important, self-examination is also crucial because mammography does not detect about 10% of breast cancers found on physical examination.

When weighing the occasional pancaking of my bosom with having one or both removed (at the very least), I think I will put up with the humiliation, pain and embarrassment. Where's the phone. I need to make an appointment.

Summary: