Because of Quill

[school17777]

And another lady at church, I had my second mammogram today.  I would have preferred thermography, but it’s not covered under my insurance and I’m too frugal to out right pay for it when the mammogram is covered.

I confused the lady with a couple of my answers which I guess are straight forward for most people.  She asked how many children I have and I replied four, so she said while she marked it in the computer, you’ve had four full term pregnancies.  I said no, three because I have twins.  She said but you have four kids.  Yes, but one pregnancy was twins, so three full term pregnancies.  She decided to leave it at four because she said the question only asked “term” and didn’t mention pregnancy and said it didn’t make a difference anyway. So why even ask then?

 

[school17777]

Just now, peacelovehomeschooling said:

Oh good grief!  This is not complicated at all.  She would really baffled by me since one of my children was adopted!

 

I wanted to ask her how she would handle an adoption, but I didn’t want to confuse her anymore!

[Junie]

I'm having a mammogram today, too.  I might reward myself with sushi afterward.

[school17777]

1 hour ago, Junie said:

I'm having a mammogram today, too.  I might reward myself with sushi afterward.

 

I didn’t think about a reward!  Enjoy your sushi.

[DesertBlossom]

So would I not count oldest DS because he was premature?

[school17777]

10 minutes ago, DesertBlossom said:

So would I not count oldest DS because he was premature?

 

Not according to her reasoning!  I wondered that too though.

[KrissiK]

3 hours ago, Junie said:

I'm having a mammogram today, too.  I might reward myself with sushi afterward.

 

1 hour ago, school17777 said:

 

I didn’t think about a reward!  Enjoy your sushi.

Hey, we get rewards?? I didn’t get a reward and I went for my “annual peek-a-boo” and I hate that. I need a reward.

[Junie]

27 minutes ago, KrissiK said:

 

Hey, we get rewards?? I didn’t get a reward and I went for my “annual peek-a-boo” and I hate that. I need a reward.

Definitely we get rewards.  Go buy yourself some chocolate or something!

 

[Guest]

I’m so glad you all are getting the parts checked out. 

One thing I plan to promote once I have conquered this cancer business is self-exam. I mean, we all know we’re supposed to do this, but since I have been talking to people about my diagnosis, a very surprising number of ladies have said, “self-exam? Oh, I never do that.” 

Ladies, if I were not in the habit of copping a feel every so often as I lie in bed, this could have easily gone unnoticed for some while. Even once it was known to be there, it did not show up on the mammogram; it showed on MRI and U/s. 

We must check our boobies! We must look carefully at our bodies, skin, mouths, moles, eyes, hair - everything we can see and have other people looking at the things we can’t look at ourselves. My hairdresser was just telling me she noticed the back of the ear of one of her clients did not look normal; he had skin cancer. She saved his life by commenting on a part of his body he doesn’t see. 

[Acorn]

They are asking term pregnancies to enter into a formula to calculate risk. It has to do with total months of menstruation. I can’t remember the month I started menstruating, only that it was a particular summer between two grades. I also had my birthday midsummer, so whether I was 11 or 12 is fuzzy. I don’t see how it would matter given a few weeks difference, but the statistics are only set up to use age. 

Another question is “age at your first pregnancy?” Most of my pregnancy was at age 29, but the birth happened when I was 30. So it’s another grey area for statistics. 

[Faith-manor]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I’m so glad you all are getting the parts checked out. 

One thing I plan to promote once I have conquered this cancer business is self-exam. I mean, we all know we’re supposed to do this, but since I have been talking to people about my diagnosis, a very surprising number of ladies have said, “self-exam? Oh, I never do that.” 

Ladies, if I were not in the habit of copping a feel every so often as I lie in bed, this could have easily gone unnoticed for some while. Even once it was known to be there, it did not show up on the mammogram; it showed on MRI and U/s. 

We must check our boobies! We must look carefully at our bodies, skin, mouths, moles, eyes, hair - everything we can see and have other people looking at the things we can’t look at ourselves. My hairdresser was just telling me she noticed the back of the ear of one of her clients did not look normal; he had skin cancer. She saved his life by commenting on a part of his body he doesn’t see. 

It is hard though when you have a lot of fibroids. I have had that with dense breast tissue since I was 17. It is fairly impossible for me to track all the lumps with a breast exam, and my nurse practitioner laughs when she does them because she thinks, "Okay then. That wasn't helpful." 

So regular ladies, yes, you need to check them yourself. And those of us with the above problem need to fight the good fight with our insurance companies or save the cash for breast ultrasound because it is horrifically painful to have mammograms, and they aren't super helpful for this condition but ultrasound definitely gets the job done.

Ladies, we just simply need to take care of ourselves. It isn't selfish or narcissistic. We are people too, and our families need us. We would want our partners and kids to have preventative and diagnostic care, it's okay to make that a priority for ourselves as well.

[Junie]

I just got back from my mammogram, sushi, and spending my Kohl's cash.  :)

There was only one other woman in the waiting room with me.  She did not speak English as her primary language and asked me a few words on the form she didn't know.  I had no idea how to tell her what an ablation was.  I told her that it was a medical procedure and if she wasn't familiar with the word she probably hadn't had one.  I also tried to explain menopause to her.

I knew one of the two techs working and I was kind of glad I got the other one.  I think it would have been at least a little weird for both of us.  (She was a student at the school I used to teach at.  She wasn't one of my students, but her cousins were.)

After the mammogram I did indeed treat myself to sushi and then I went to Kohl's to spend freeish money.  :)

[Noreen Claire]

Thank you for reminding me that I'm supposed to go have this done. Off to put it on my "to-schedule" list.

[KrissiK]

2 hours ago, Junie said:

I just got back from my mammogram, sushi, and spending my Kohl's cash.  🙂

 

Next time I'm going with Junie. She knows how to do it right!

[hornblower]

Just adding to the breast self exam thing - I found my cancer about 3 months after a clean mammogram. It was aggressive and grew that fast. Waiting for a year or 2 for the next mammo to catch it would have been literally deadly for me. 

Also, if you have dense breasts, consider tomography or a breast MRI in addition or in lieu of regular mammos. Have a look at https://www.areyoudense.org/

Your mammogram report should indicate whether your breasts are dense or not. I believe some jurisdictions are requiring radiologists to note it in their report so try to get the written report and see what it says. Or just ask the technicians doing it - on some of the new digital machines they can see the image and mine told me that my tissue was dense. 

[BakersDozen]

Quote

I didn’t get a reward and I went for my “annual peek-a-boo” and I hate that.

Oh my...now I'm going to be giggling during my exam soon as I think of it described this way.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, hornblower said:

Just adding to the breast self exam thing - I found my cancer about 3 months after a clean mammogram. It was aggressive and grew that fast. Waiting for a year or 2 for the next mammo to catch it would have been literally deadly for me. 

Also, if you have dense breasts, consider tomography or a breast MRI in addition or in lieu of regular mammos. Have a look at https://www.areyoudense.org/

Your mammogram report should indicate whether your breasts are dense or not. I believe some jurisdictions are requiring radiologists to note it in their report so try to get the written report and see what it says. Or just ask the technicians doing it - on some of the new digital machines they can see the image and mine told me that my tissue was dense. 

Yes to the dense tissue; this is true for me too. In my case, the radiologist is required to both tell you you have dense tissue and to send a written report that states this and explains it. 

[Kassia]

I have very dense breast tissue, too, and my insurance wouldn't even cover a 3D mammogram as a screening.  The technician said I had the densest breast tissue she's ever seen.  

[Junie]

Clear results on my mammogram.  :)

[iamonlyone]

I'm in the dense camp too. 😉 After extremely painful mammograms, always followed by ultrasounds because the mammogram was all-white, I eventually switched to annual thermography. I haven't had any abnormal results of tests and don't have a family history of breast cancer, so this seems like an OK screening choice for me.