Who Knew That Men Could Get Breast Cancer?

Who knew that men can get breast cancer? Actually, I probably have sometime in the foggy past read or heard about men getting breast cancer. But I’ve never knew of any man who had actually been diagnosed with breast cancer, or even suspected they might have breast cancer. Until now.

I might have breast cancer. I first noticed a tenderness in my right breast (I didn’t even know I had a breast) about a month ago, but I didn’t think much about it, maybe I just bumped into the door on my way to one of my many middle-of-the-night pee trips from the bed through the dark to the commode. But last week I not only felt a tenderness in the breast but also a lump under the nipple. Being old, but not too old to be plugged into the Internet, I Googled “Can men get breast cancer?” and found out quite quickly that shit yes we can. And as I read the symptoms – the lump and tenderness, swelling and discoloration of the nipple – I might well have it. So I called my doctor.

I was in my doctor’s office probably twenty minutes today, twelve flipping through old copies of People magazine, two with the doctor, and six with his nurse in several shifts from one to two minutes. But the upshot was straightforward – mammogram day after tomorrow, and appointment with a surgeon next Monday. There’s always the chance of course that whatever tumor might be there is benign, and I would be glad if that’s the case. (Though it would probably have to be cut out nonetheless. Please stick me with a local before carving, thank you.) Fatality will probably not be the result of whatever might be this present problem, cancerous or not. But whatever, it’s still nature’s slight reminder that someday it will be.