I had my annual mammogram this week.
I know some women hate this procedure but I am relatively religious about it, in a non-practicing Catholicism sort of way, because the first year I had one, they discovered a lump. My midwife promptly scheduled me for a lumpectomy and I prepared for it the only way I knew how: I went cross-country skiing the night before to alleviate my anxiety and then came home and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail and drank wine as a sort of pre-op prep.
You might find this approach odd but when the nurse stuck a ten-inch needle in my breast the next morning in an effort to stabilize the lump and I almost passed out standing up, the memory of the scene where the armless and legless knight shouts, “I’m not dead yet,” really helped. Later on, when I was lying on the operating table with only a local anesthesia, I distracted myself by replaying the movie in my head.
The downside was, the surgeon thought I was laughing at him.
The lumpectomy was successful and the lump was thankfully benign. But to this day my left breast sags and I swear that doctor inadvertently cut a muscle in my breast because I laughed on the operating table.
It’s good to have an excuse for sagging breasts.
This year I asked George if he wanted to drive me to the mammogram appointment and he turned pale. I said, “Look at it this way, if they find a benign lump in my other breast and he cuts that muscle too, I can rebuild without guilt.”
This is a concept I inherited from Susan, who has a history of breast cancer—and small breasts—in her family. I asked her one time if her family history of breast cancer worried her and she said no, she sometimes fantasized about having a proactive double mastectomy so she could pick exactly the breasts she wanted. This idea appalled Annie. She said, “Why not just go with a Wonder Bra??” and I said the search for one my size would be too painful.
