Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I posted a post on 1blankpage for breastcancer awareness month, where Chris P Pancake has done sterling work empinkening the blog for the month. It's about my mother's cancer, and the path it and her rejection of the health service led her on.

Tinman just asked me why not here, and, well, I originally suggested I'd rather not write it because I had ambivalent feelings about the whole thing, about the way cancer is managed, patients are treated, etc, etc. But then it occurred to me that in fact it was more of an advertisement for testing and treatment than not, considering. Also, he suggested that people need to know that avoiding testing won't stop you getting ill.


A couple years ago, after I finished feeding Olivia, one of my nipples went inverted - not all the time, but often. I figured it was probably just a blockage of some kind, but I knew it can be a sign of cancer, and I went to the GP, who referred me on to Vincent's as a precautionary measure, as something was pulling it in, even though there were no other signs. She showed me how to do a breast check, which is nothing other than the obvious really - what anyone would do themselves, unless they never ever touch their breasts for some unfathomable reason.


I got to Vincent's, they were nice, a young doctor and a nice lady (also a doctor? I can't remember, but they go in in twos, to avoid being accused of harrassment, presumably) examined me, and referred me for a scan, just in case. More waiting and the inevitable thinking about having cancer, possible treatment, dying and leaving my child motherless, etc, obviously.




The appointment was for the first week of the school term. I was meant to have a subject meeting for Special Needs, which my Principal insisted was vital - I told her it would be irresponsible of me to miss the scan and she grumpily told me to talk to the head of the subject - who is a sweet woman who'd been through serious kidney cancer when her son was born, and had no problem with me going. I hadn't told the principal what the scan was for, and she apparently said to Jennifer 'Maybe she's pregnant, I don't know' - which I found offensive, somehow, I have to say.


The scan itself was just an ultrasound - it involved the usual - hours of waiting, despite having an apointment, talking to the elderly, confused and frightened woman being wheeled around and ignored by a Pakistani nurse, who was failing to reassure her in any way - she was left parked there, til someone else came and pushed her off with such force that she nearly got whiplash. Just that says it all. How hard would it be to introduce yourself and tell her where she was being taken, not just come up behind her and shove her away suddenly.

The bit that really got to me is that at one point, I was sent to strip my top half, put on a gown - and was then sent back out to sit in the open reception/waiting area, which is by the stairs, a thoroughfare... yes, it does not feel reassuring or empowering, to sit bra-less and unsupported in a hospital gown for an hour. It was completely unnecessary, and must only be designed intentionally to intimidate parents.


Finally, I got the scan, they found nothing, the radiologist? ultrasound person was of the brisk and brusque variety of whom I am not so fond, but that was that.


I was meant to go back two years later, but at that point I'd just had Dade, and you can't really do a good breast test when you're breastfeeding. They also told me I'd need a mammogram every two years from 35, because of my family history (it's usually 5o) but I am just not so sure about that. There is plenty of research to suggest that radiation causes cancer - I'm not keen to regularly irradiate my breasts, especially if there is a predilection there.


However, when I talked to the doctor in the women's clinic (hmm, who still haven't sent me my smear test results, actually) she suggested asking them again, as trends change so fast, from year to year, and different doctors have different policies.


In the end, my nipple uninverted itself - we'll see what happens after I stop breastfeeding again, hopefully whatever happened has been resolved. I still think it was a simple blockage, but the spectre is always there, unfortunately.


Axel's father died of lung cancer at 70, and Axel's been smoking for most of his adult life. With that and my mother's history, it doesn't give us great odds, does it? At least I don't smoke, or drink much, breastfed, and have taken more than one dose of Carcinocin, a homoeopathic remedy for having cancer in the family. Actually made of breast cancer, if I remember rightly. Nice, eh? But there's lots more to do - I need to really start working in diet and waistline though. And what to do about Axel and smoking? He's been insisting he'll quit soon for years. At what point is it acceptable to start beating him with blunt objects over it?