Chapter 1: I Had to Start a Blog. Sorry!!

One of my birthday presents from Lani was a homemade Kicking Cancer to The Curb journal.  I became a cliché long ago so since I don’t have to worry about that anymore I can carry my breast cancer journal with me wherever I go.  And though I can’t bring myself to write down intimate thoughts (I wouldn't want my therapist to get jealous), it has become a nice place to collect clippings, cards, notes, reminders, and gratitudes.  Lani sprinkled some pictures of the kids throughout, so I am reminded every day of my number one and number two reasons to live.  Now next year, I hope to get a bunch of new C cup bikinis.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back in February, I was on a little vacation with Michael and the kids and I felt a little lump.  Michael made me promise to get it checked out the minute I got back to New York, and I did.  My gynecologist felt it and thought it was definitely nothing, probably a cyst or a fibroid or a French fry.  Probably a French fry since I’m only 37, I have no significant history of breast cancer in my family, and I don’t eat cigarette butts.  But she sent me to get a mammogram and an ultrasound anyway.

What can you say about Mammography except that it was most certainly developed by a group of people with no breasts.  I had never had the pleasure of having my breasts clamped into a vice and tightened with a wheel.  The technician seemed more than a little annoyed that I didn’t know how to accurately contort my chest, neck, waist, and butt so that she could get my little triple-A breast into her machine.  Maybe that’s why she barked “STOP BREATHING!!” which is perhaps not the most appropriate choice of words when a woman is wondering if she might in fact do just that involuntarily at any moment.

By the way, do they do the same thing with a penis?  I haven’t had the time to look into that, but I am very curious.  Does the penis go into a clamp that they squeeze with vice grips?