Monday 27 May 2013

One of these things is not like the others.


So 40, hey? Tops right? I'm sure it is. Really I am. My sexual prime is rocking. I feel totally in touch with the womanly wonder that is me. It's epiphanies left right and centre. Glitter is thrown at my feet by kittens riding unicorns, as I stroll with confidence around my lounge room. And choirs of angels are singing about the glory that is my 40-year-old body.

Or.

I could be heading to a diagnostic mammogram tomorrow, because even my boobs are stupidly defunct. Happy 40th, now lets squish your miniature mammaries into pancakes/pikelets/poffertjes.

I actually found the lump before my 40th but just couldn't face another broken body part before I made it out of my 30s. There's a limit to the amount of decrepitude a girl can handle before she clocks over into the big leagues. You see I've been down the lumpy boob route for 10 years now. Had my first biopsy before my 30th birthday and had my first chunk of dodgy boob cut out not long after.

I've even written about my defunct boobage before.

My boob is a garden.
Garden VS Swiss Sheese: Update on "My boob is a garden".

But enough is enough. So I waited until after the big four oh, thinking it'd be nothing yet again. But it's never that simple, is it?

Remember that song from Sesame Street, "one of these things is not like the others"? Story of my life. My boobs, small as they are, may be best described as feeling like a bag of marbles, courtesy of all the cysts and fibroadenomas that rattle around in there. But every now and then, one of those marbles doesn't feel like all the others. This is one of those times.

I swear chronic illness is best defined as being felt up by strangers on a regular basis. This occurred to me Thursday, as I lay topless yet again on the table in the GP clinic. My regular GP was booked out. My back up GP had left the practice unbeknownst to me, which meant I had to risk a new doctor. Normally I'd wait till I could get into my regular GP, but sometimes things crop up and you need to be seen (or in this case before I changed my mind). So once more I found myself agreeing to be groped by another stranger.

I lay down whilst she listed off my collection, "one o'clock right breast", " four and five o'clock", "10 o'clock"..... (Is is wrong that I distract myself be thinking of the Play School Rocket Clock, every time I go through this process?). I sat on the edge of the bed. Arm up. Arm down. Whilst she concentrated on my minuscule mammaries. I sat there like the performing monkey I am. Resigned to that fact that any dignity I had is long since past.


After much in the way of arm acrobatics and going through my lengthy history, I was told that I need to be scanned.

Normally I just do an ultrasound every 1-2yrs to keep an eye on my collection. The girls are incredibly dense (aka stupid) despite being so tiny, so ultrasound is the way to go. But nope apparently that's not enough this time. Now I have to be squished and have the ultrasound. YAY.

Who even knew there were different types of mammograms? Not me. So we're skipping regular and going for the diagnostic one, because I'm special.


When I rang last week to set up my appointments, it occurred to me that you stand for a mammogram. Which could be kind of problematic given the whole 'standing ends in falling over' issue I have with Dysautonomia. I've had visions of me lying passed out on the floor my aging boobs stretched before me nipples still stuck in the plates of the machine. After pointing my dilemma out to the receptionist they have agreed that I can sit whilst they do the scan or at least in between each one. I am also wondering how they will get my concave breasts onto the plates. Surely they need something to work with?

So tomorrow my best friend is coming with me to my inaugural boob squish. If anyone can make me laugh and take my mind off it all, it's her. She's also not afraid to slap me round and tell me I am over-reacting if the need arises. Because that's what good friends do.

No doubt it'll be nothing and all my worry and stress will be for naught. Which will also shit me as I have little in the way of reserves and my neuroses should be reserved for the stuff that does matter. Wasted energy and wasted grey hairs.

How can something so small be so troublesome?

Michelle

This just seems rather appropriate today.

4 comments:

  1. I've had two of them, and they weren't nearly as bad as I'd been led to expect. Minimal discomfort, over quickly. And my girls are kinda lumpy, too. Maybe it just seemed like a piece of cake compared to everything else that's been thrown at me.

    Honestly, for me, the worst part is walking from the dressing room to the mammography room without a bra. Ow.

    Yay for mini-boobs--we have a hard enough time sitting up straight as it is!

    ReplyDelete
  2. good luck for tomorrow or today?

    I wondered how they would do the procedure standing up, although I had an ultra sound and I biopsy so didn't have too! lots of cysts too, think its an connective tissue thing.
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bless your heart... and being a southern lady I sincerely mean it. I wonder if having boobs like a sack of marbles is part of this autonomic issue? So do I, but mine are in danger of mashing my toe...I figured with Fibromyalgia as well, it was part of that problem. I had my first lump at 30 and have had a yearly mammogram since 40 and sometimes the ultra sound as well. So...that means this year I will have 20+ mashed titters under my belt(so that's where they are). Hang in there, and I don't mean that literally- you in the floor and your girl in the machine will surely ruin your day. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I recently had a mammogram, and ultrasounds with cysts in my breasts self exams next to useless. Turns out my request for imaging was lucky as they found a lump, They biopsied it and that tissue didn't tell them enough to feel it was for-sure safe.


    Friday June 14th i am having a lumpectomy

    I am coping okay, but its all a lot to deal with.
    I'm 26, have Endo, IC, Fibro and i'm told now there's a chance (though small) i have breast cancer. I'll be glad when surgery is over, and 2weeks after that when pathology is back.

    http://canadianpain.blogspot.ca/

    ReplyDelete

All who are lovely enough to comment should be showered with cup cakes, glitter and macarons. I promise to use my spoon bending mind powers to try and get that happening for all who are lovely enough to share their words. Those who go the extra step to share posts should really get a free unicorn. Or at least the gift of finding the shortest and quickest line at the supermarket on a regular basis. xx

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.