by B.A. Belthoff
Have you made plans to take your best girls and go get smashed? I’m not referring to your BFFs and the local bar, but rather about the two girls you sling in a bra each day when getting dressed.
October is breast cancer awareness month. We will be reminded by billboards on the highways, pink ribbons in storefront windows, ads on the television and even by the pink some pro teams incorporate into their uniforms for the month.
I was given a royal blue cape to don after stripping down up top. All superheroes need capes! Except maybe the Incredibles, when Edna Mode declared to Mr. incredible of his newly designed outfit: No cape!
There were lockers along the wall where you could safely stow your belongings during the test. Each had a nameplate of a strong woman from recent history. Some of my choices included Wonder Woman, Helen Keller, Audrey Hepburn, Queen Latifah, and Maya Angelou.
I was going to choose Wonder Woman, feeling that since I already had the cape, the choice would be appropriate. Someone else had beat me to it, though. Instead, I chose Serena Williams. She’s a mom who is balancing work and family. Our similarities don’t stop there. She’s bold and expressive, fiercely competitive and has a killer backhand. Yup, this is where my stuff belongs, I thought.
After sitting down and making pleasantries with the other women in the waiting room, I couldn’t help but wonder which locker they chose. How did they see themselves when not draped in blue? No one seemed overly anxious, so I made the presumption that we were all there for yearly screenings and not for an emergency.
Every technician I’ve encountered is very genuinely caring and knowledgeable. They appreciate that women can and do feel a little uncomfortable bearing their breasts, even while knowing every girl has them.
About one out of every 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. Think about the women in your life: friends, family, neighbors, coworkers. I’m betting the statistic checks out. It does for me. The American Cancer Society tries to maintain a sense of positivity by claiming the one in eight statistic also means your chance of NOT developing the disease is 7 out of 8. It’s good to stay positive.
When I stop and think about the people in my life who have dealt with breast cancer, some successfully beating it, and others sadly succumbing to it, I can’t help but feel like we are all at the deli counter waiting for our number to be called.
“Number 9…”
“Slice them off.”
“Number 10…”
It’s a crude visual because it really isn’t funny, nor is there a way to make it so. It’s just how I feel.
In New Jersey, the place I routinely visited was owned by the same doctors whose OBGYN practice I was a patient. They set up a mammography center and had an on-site radiologist who would read the films immediately. They’d have images retaken, right then and there, to get clearer visuals, if an area was in question. When you left the office, you knew you were ok. There was no waiting for two weeks for my doctor to deliver the results, like I was recently told. When you think there is something wrong, getting immediate answers is comforting, to say the least.
Several years before we moved, I felt something. From the moment I phoned the doctor’s office, it was as if they swiped their schedule clean to make room for me. It took longer to secure a safe place for my daughters after the school day finished, than it was to get an appointment. I was in their office that afternoon. After seeing the doctor, I went directly to the imaging center to have a sonogram and meet with the radiologist. Luckily, I was one of the seven.
There were visits when a nurse would enter the waiting area and apologize for the delay.
“We’ve had an emergency; we’re sorry for the wait, if you need to reschedule, please let us know.”
Those of us in the waiting room were like soldiers, trading our capes for infantry uniforms. No one minded. One of our own had fallen and needed to be cared for. They had provided swift passage for me, now it was time to clear the path for her.
We hoped everything would be okay. I’m sure others, like myself, said a silent prayer for the woman. We would never learn how things turned out for her, but she, no doubt, needed our prayers.
At my recent visit here in Houston, I had a new experience. Becky tried to photo bomb when the technician was “photographing” Betsy.
“We’re still getting the left side in the image,” Jasmine, the mammogram technologist told me.
It took several tries to get an individual image of each girl.
When we successfully photographed each of them, I asked if I could look at the digital pictures. I find it interesting to be able to see inside my body. They looked like boobs.
Getting the girls smashed between two paddles isn’t the most comfortable experience. But it isn’t the most awful, either. Leaving with red marks from my lower neck to my underarms is a small inconvenience to endure in exchange for knowing that the test can save my life.
I walked out a short time later sporting my red marks and ready to take on the challenges of the day – feeling like a superhero. If you’ve been putting off your screening; get it done. Attack the issue like Serena Williams attacks the tennis ball. The smashing really isn’t that bad. You could celebrate by buying yourself a new cape.
If worrying were an Olympic sport, I’d hold many gold medals. Even back in elementary school I was reprimanded by Mrs. McCabe, my first-grade teacher. I had forgotten my homework and was very upset about it. She called me into the hallway and told me I was a good student and to not be such a worry wart. Oh, how our personality traits reveal themselves so early in life!
The Beth-Ann Alternative 