From the category archives:

Health Care

Breast “Care” Center to the Rescue

June 29, 2009

Lucy Q from the Breast Care Center calls one week after their radiologist informed me that I have breast cancer.
“How are you sweetie?” She sounds young and perky. “Sorry I did not call you earlier, I have been on vacation.” She pauses and I expect her to tell me about her vacation.
“How are you [...]

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Retrieving My X-Rays from the Breast “Care” Center

June 29, 2009

Friday afternoon. I drive back to the Breast Care Center for the fourth time in less than a month to retrieve my mammograms. I need to give them to my surgeon when I see him.
Again, I ruminate  over the hopeless, pointless, and completely unanswerable question: Why did they not find my lump last year, [...]

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How to Lie with Statistics – or Just Ignore Them.

June 27, 2009

A perfect day to hang out in our wonderful pool, the one extravagant purchase we do not regret. It is large and deep, filled with cool turquoise,  mildly salty, water, soothing to both body and soul. My friend Cecilia comes over and gives me “The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer.” (Winner of the Ross Kushner [...]

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Breast Cancer is NEVER an Emergency!

June 20, 2009

Just before his office closes, I get an appointment for two weeks later with Dr. Guru, an oncology surgeon.
“First available? Are you sure?”
“Yes, that is the earliest. We want your x-rays from the Breast Care Center brought over here well before that, and we want your biopsy results faxed over right away. Then we need [...]

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Lumpectomy Rhymes with Vasectomy. Must be a Piece of Cake.

June 20, 2009

Although the possibility that I may have cancer has loomed for weeks, months if you include the time I wasted after I discovered the lump, my diagnosis takes me by such a surprise that I do not have a single question for the radiologist when she calls and gives me the biopsy result. And she [...]

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The Breast “Care” Center Missed the Hazelnut!

June 17, 2009

The Breast “Care” Center has been spiffed up since the year before. Nice wood, glass doors, new upholstery on the chairs. The machinery is the same though, cold and hard and a bit hurtful. After my 3 PM mammogram, I wait while they check my films. I nervously play with my blackberry, too restless to [...]

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The Pretty Useless Screening Mammogram

June 17, 2009

-If you have discovered a lump, says the scheduler at the Breast “Care” Center, then you cannot make an appointment.
-Uh?
-You need a diagnostic mammogram, and your doctor, not you need to schedule it. Otherwise the insurance company won’t pay.
-But I don’t have a doctor – yet, I only have a check up with a [...]

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