October is officially Breast Cancer Awareness Month and we at WVFC hope that we can be as helpful to you in the coming four weeks as the strawberry blond woman I encountered two decades ago was to me — by providing informational, practical, and inspiring content about the most common cancer among women.
More than 20 years ago, while volunteering at a breast cancer screening clinic, I found myself, a non-medical professional, walking my fingertips across the body of a stranger. My job was to hand each woman’s chart to Dr. R., also a volunteer, refresh the exam table between patients with a crisp new length of white paper, and serve as a chaperone. The turnout was low, and the pace was slow — until in walked a petite woman with beautiful skin and thick wavy hair a striking shade of strawberry blond. She moved stiffly, her knees unbending, her arms, hands, and fingers curled at odd angles. Her chart revealed that she was 40 years old, had suffered from arthritis since childhood — and was here because she had felt a lump in her left breast three weeks earlier.
Breast Cancer Awareness:Her disability prevented her from climbing onto the table, so Dr. R. lifted her up and helped her to lie back. As he gently kneaded her small breasts, he said, “Yes, there is a lump here. You need to do something about this. You must do something about this.” Then, “Would you mind if the trainee examined this?”
She agreed, and that’s when I felt it, the sinister squatter that had taken up residence in the body of this woman who’d never laid eyes on me before. It was hard, the size and shape of a walnut, and lodged firmly just behind the nipple. I will never forget how it felt when my finger tripped over it, like a toe trips over a stone in soft sand; if I ever feel such a thing in my own breast, I will recognize it for what it is, get help — and in my heart thank the strawberry blond woman for her extraordinary gift to me.
Afterwards, Dr. R. pulled his stool up close and spoke kindly and frankly to the woman, outlining what the next weeks and months would likely bring — the mammogram, the biopsy, the treatment options, the possible loss of her breast. The details of this litany escaped me. In my mind’s eye I saw my grandmother changing clothes years after her own mastectomy, her chest flat as a board, the area beneath her arm concave where cancer-stricken lymph nodes had been removed, as if a big bite had been taken from her side. Is this what was in store for the redheaded woman? For any woman who develops breast cancer? For me?
Thankfully, no. The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer have come a long way since my grandmother’s bout with the disease. Biopsies and lumpectomies typically are often removed through the area around the aereola, so that the breast has very little distortion. Even when a mastectomy is necessary, reconstruction of the breast can begin at the time of that surgery. This is what money given by so many over the past 20 years has yielded: earlier detection, improved treatment, and a better quality of life after diagnosis for a great percentage of women. Read More:
http://womensvoicesforchange.org/kicking-off-breast-cancer-awareness-month-share-your-story.htm
More than 20 years ago, while volunteering at a breast cancer screening clinic, I found myself, a non-medical professional, walking my fingertips across the body of a stranger. My job was to hand each woman’s chart to Dr. R., also a volunteer, refresh the exam table between patients with a crisp new length of white paper, and serve as a chaperone. The turnout was low, and the pace was slow — until in walked a petite woman with beautiful skin and thick wavy hair a striking shade of strawberry blond. She moved stiffly, her knees unbending, her arms, hands, and fingers curled at odd angles. Her chart revealed that she was 40 years old, had suffered from arthritis since childhood — and was here because she had felt a lump in her left breast three weeks earlier.
Breast Cancer Awareness:Her disability prevented her from climbing onto the table, so Dr. R. lifted her up and helped her to lie back. As he gently kneaded her small breasts, he said, “Yes, there is a lump here. You need to do something about this. You must do something about this.” Then, “Would you mind if the trainee examined this?”
She agreed, and that’s when I felt it, the sinister squatter that had taken up residence in the body of this woman who’d never laid eyes on me before. It was hard, the size and shape of a walnut, and lodged firmly just behind the nipple. I will never forget how it felt when my finger tripped over it, like a toe trips over a stone in soft sand; if I ever feel such a thing in my own breast, I will recognize it for what it is, get help — and in my heart thank the strawberry blond woman for her extraordinary gift to me.
Afterwards, Dr. R. pulled his stool up close and spoke kindly and frankly to the woman, outlining what the next weeks and months would likely bring — the mammogram, the biopsy, the treatment options, the possible loss of her breast. The details of this litany escaped me. In my mind’s eye I saw my grandmother changing clothes years after her own mastectomy, her chest flat as a board, the area beneath her arm concave where cancer-stricken lymph nodes had been removed, as if a big bite had been taken from her side. Is this what was in store for the redheaded woman? For any woman who develops breast cancer? For me?
Thankfully, no. The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer have come a long way since my grandmother’s bout with the disease. Biopsies and lumpectomies typically are often removed through the area around the aereola, so that the breast has very little distortion. Even when a mastectomy is necessary, reconstruction of the breast can begin at the time of that surgery. This is what money given by so many over the past 20 years has yielded: earlier detection, improved treatment, and a better quality of life after diagnosis for a great percentage of women. Read More:
http://womensvoicesforchange.org/kicking-off-breast-cancer-awareness-month-share-your-story.htm
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