My Mammogram

I’m not sure what the first sign was that I am not the typical patient at the Mercy Hospital Breast Imaging Center. Maybe it was the three women sitting in the waiting room with me, trying not to be conspicuous in their glancing up to figure out just why I might be there. Maybe it was the available choice of magazines – People, Better Homes and Garden, Redbook (that’s it). Maybe it was the registration sheet, with questions such as “Was your previous mammogram done at this clinic?” or “Have you had any bloody discharge from your breast?” or “Are you pregnant?,” or the line drawing at the bottom of the sheet of a torso of a particularly well-endowed woman where I was supposed to indicate where exactly the lump on my breast was? It was definitely by the time the clinician, almost giddy with anticipation, told me that she would have to take several images of both of my breasts because “we don’t get very many men” and so needed some comparative shots. I’d like to think that she was looking forward to feeling me up, albeit it in a quite professional way (though it’s not likely, given I’m old enough to be at least her father, plus our flirting was limited to talk of mowing the lawn, planting the garden, and the chance of rain).

The procedure itself turned out to be thankfully simple and painless. I’d been led to believe that it sometimes is more painful for males than females, but I had no pain at all, the only discomfort being the contortions required to maneuver my tiny man breasts into the optimum view of the machine. And I was surprised to get the results of the pictures soon after the shoot, and relieved that the results were good – only a benign growth (according to the images), perhaps an indication that I’m becoming a woman in my old age (or at least that was how I took whatever it was the doctor was saying). I’m still supposed to go to my appointment with the surgeon next week, if only to get his opinion about what to do about the lump (and its tenderness) – forget about it, monitor it, biopsy it, or just cut it out and be done with it. Whatever. I’m just glad I don’t have to go on some daytime talk show as a breast cancer survivor.

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.