ready for my close-up
Today I had my first mammogram. I have neither lived in fear of this day nor looked forward to it. When my new gynecologist — a woman as direct as her jawline, someone I could easily see myself swilling after-work drinks with — suggested at age 37 it was time for me to establish a baseline I wasn’t surprised. I live in the satisfying limbo between getting carded on (the increasingly rare) occasion and feeling a desperate need to moisturize away my hands’ growing veininess. It’s not a bad place to be. You can still confidently stroll into a Wet Seal store at the mall … but find yourself much more excited by Nordstrom’s half yearly sale.
At the very least, I like to keep my rites of passage in perspective. I was relieved that my mammogram would take place in an actual doctor’s office rather than the “mammovan” that roved the corporate campus where I used to work. I applaud the communal outreach but, really, is there anything less confidence-inspiring than a “mammovan”? Why sully the magic of the bookmobile by retro-fitting it with a junior department’s bra shop? Isn’t it bad enough that the whole experience is generally described as an excruciating boob squash?
“Only believe about a third of what you’ve heard,” the twangy technician told me this morning after finding out I was a mammo-virgin. She needn’t have worried. Given the soothing aqua-colored walls, the skin-flattering teal cotton drape and the quality selection of magazines in the waiting area (Conde Nast Traveler, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar), I already considered myself ahead of the game. And maybe a little cocky too. On the sign-in sheet, how could I not notice I was the only birthdate after 1970? In the gyno waiting room, burstingly pregnant young women and too-cool mamas are evidence of the wide array of life’s choices. In mammography’s inter sanctum, the edges blur. Generally solo and well-groomed, these women don’t wear their decisions so clearly on their bellies or their bustlines.
Which brings us to my boobs. I consider myself one of the fortunate few who are perfectly pleased to have what DNA, that little genetic cocktail, gave them. Oh, I might change a few LITTLE things about them (Sorry, that curtain is closed. Isn’t this TMI enough?) but on the whole, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. To borrow from Seinfeld, they’re real and, to me at least, they’re spectacular.
I have thought about what would happen if I found not only a lump but The Lump. I would absolutely follow whatever treatment my doctor and I felt was the right course of action and Vanity doesn’t have a seat at that particular table. Still, I’m humbled to know I would likely count the days until I could get reconstructive surgery if I had a mastectomy. I spend very little time thinking about my breasts because I have the luxury of taking them for granted. But today they seem less like sweater-shaping accessories than what they really are: important accomplices in how I see myself. Wherever I go, they go first. I feel like I should take them out to lunch or present them with an award in front of the rest of the team, say something like, “Thanks, ladies, for not falling down on the job. Keep up the good work.”
Because today is not because of a lump but the idea of one. Today is because I have a 401(k), a health plan and a husband whom I’d like to pal around with as long as possible. And today is because I knew Carol. If my earth is round, Carol’s was flat. Was it her partner who told us she found mammograms painful enough that she decided not to get them done after the first one? By the time they discovered her cancer even aggressive treatment wasn’t enough. She died en route to a larger hospital only a couple of weeks after being diagnosed. Her swift death — we didn’t even know she was ill — was all the more shocking for seeming so avoidable. Something that might’ve been discovered so much sooner for the price of brief discomfort.
Carol’s death was almost 10 years ago. I don’t know how much technology has changed but I can say that the greatest discomfort I experienced today was envying the outfit worn by another woman on the elevator.
What I had been warned would be a bit of a smash & grab turned out to be more of a fluff & fold, a lift & separate. “After the first time, everyone tries to be a helper,” the technician said as she nudged first my right breast then my left on to the plate marked with a landing strip-like grid. Turn your head this way, put your hand on this bar, hold your breath. The plexiglass bracket compressed and framed me while she ran behind the machine to grab a quick snapshot of all that muscle, fatty tissue and mayhem. It’s really not unlike getting a mug shot: Each boob presented face-forward and in profile. I’ll receive the results in the mail in about two weeks. All total, I was in and out of the building — never mind my bra — in less than 30 minutes. I didn’t even have to pay for parking.
That’s really it. I’ve been much more traumatized by a well-intentioned hair stylist. If you haven’t had a mammogram and you’re not shopping at Wet Seal, why don’t you just get it done? Even if it takes a mammovan. Here’s how to find a location near you.
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