From the category archives:

Mammogram

The Phone Call: You Have Cancer. Any Questions?

June 20, 2009

Friday afternoon, the day after my biopsy,  is one of those perfect summer days with a faint breeze chasing wispy white clouds across a blue sky, the kind of day when nothing bad is supposed to happen. I do not expect to hear about my biopsy. After all, when someone says 24-72 hours, it usually [...]

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Ultrasound: The Only Way to Tell a Tumor from a Cyst

June 18, 2009

Remarkably, I am not in a funk when I show up at the Breast Care Center for the second time in less than two weeks for a diagnostic mammogram.
I delude myself. I want to believe the woman who said “It’s nothing to worry about. Just routine clarification. We need to make sure.”
But I deep down, [...]

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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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In La-La Land with a Lump in My Boob

June 17, 2009

The newly discovered hard lump in my right breast does not shrink or go away. But on the plus side: it does not seem to grow bigger either.

How do I deal with it? I try not to think about it. I try not to touch it. I go as far as not to lather up [...]

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