The Wilder Zone

Double Whammy (or It's No Big Deal, Part II)

Two weeks to the day after that oh-so memorable breast exam, I got a call from the clinic with my pap test results. Now mind you, I’d calmed down about the lump in my breast, (I’d gone into take-care-of-business mode – work can be a great distraction) and had all but forgotten that I was even waiting for the pap test results, so I was a bit surprised to see the clinic’s number on my caller ID and to hear the PA’s voice when I answered. Uh oh. (For anyone who doesn’t know this…….when your pap test comes back normal they mail you a little postcard telling you your results were normal. They only ever call when they’re not.) Sure enough the news wasn’t good. The test indicated dysplasia and the PA let me know this would require a colposcopy and removal of the surface layer of cells on my cervix. (Damn, damn, damn…..why didn’t I make sure they took my cervix too when I’d had a hysterectomy?)

Breast Self-Exams

I sincerely hope that all you ladies are already in the habit of doing monthly breast self-exams and if you're not, I hope you'll begin to. Even if you've been doing them for years I also hope you'll take a just a few minutes to watch this breast self-exam instructional video made available by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation . No one ever taught me to be quite this thorough. The few minutes it will take to watch, and the few extra minutes it might take to do a more thorough exam each month are minutes well spent.

I was first shown how to do a breast self-exam when I was still a teen, and over the years I've been given many, many of those instructional cards you can hang in the shower and so that's how I've always done it - standing in the shower. So you can imagine my frustration after months of looking for a lump that might explain the tenderness I'd been experiencing, to discover that it had likely been there all along. In fact, frustration would be putting it mildly. Initially my reaction would be more aptly described as seriously pissed off. So I have a suggestion that I hope will help you to find a lump more quickly if there's one to find.

It's No Big Deal

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for weeks now, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I think it’s because I haven’t that I’ve been resistant to writing at all.

A little over a month ago I went in for a pap test. I’d been meaning to do it for awhile and hadn’t had one in four years, so it was long overdue. Although my sister (two years younger than I) had atypical results a year and a half ago, cervical cancer isn’t hereditary so I wasn’t too concerned. It just needed to be done.

I hadn’t even been thinking about the fact that they’d do a breast exam too, and it wasn’t until the physician’s assistant said, “Did you know you have a lump here?” that I remembered that I’d had some tenderness off and on over the last several months. She took my hand and placed my fingertips over the lump. And I remember thinking, “Yup, that’s a lump all right. I’ve been looking for that damn thing for months.”