Saber rattling sacks of cysts...
I live within a body that has breasts. These breasts are perfect. They are just the right size for my breadth of shoulder and they are still firm and shapely even as age has softened their perkiness. They suit my frame and I've never had anybody argue when I point out that they are perfect.
They are also probably homicidal.
The list of people on my mother's side of the family who have had (or do have) breast cancer is large. I've been having mammograms and ultrasounds every six months for the last seven or eight years. They automatically schedule me for the mammo, the ultrasound, and the biopsy every time they schedule me. After squeezing and taking pictures, they gather in the back and discuss what else we're going to do today.
When I went back in June they spent TWO HOURS actively photographing and ultrasounding me. I was there for three and a half hours, but two of those hours were all groups of people actively prodding a part of my body that had a ruptured cyst in it. Not Comfy.
Last week I went in and we went through the whole shebang and they decided to go ahead with the biopsy this time. Not gonna lie, that was a little bit intimidating. The only stories I've heard about this procedure were from large-breasted older women who had these things done at least ten years ago. But I know from various gynecological procedure experiences that medicine is still very firmly based in the “women don't feel pain” philosophy. That's the part that worries me.
I decided to relax and go with it as though I was getting a new piercing. A whole-ass new kind of super-cool piercing that would be totally awesome and let me know if my knockers were gearing up to knock me off.
They gave me a local anesthesia. They had a nurse who was running pain-management cognitive interference. The doctor was relaxed, confident, and explained everything very clearly. They warned me that the extraction tool would sound like a staple gun.
Even when he injected the lidocaine I felt nothing. He's good. They did some stuff that I couldn't see because of my positioning. I stayed relaxed and still. He warned me that he was going to make the sound.
Then I broke the rule about making the professional laugh while they're cutting on me. I said, “Hey, that sounds like the ear-piercing gun from Claire's.” Everybody snort-laughed and the doctor said, “That's where we took my daughter. You're right.”
The whole process was painless and I ended up with a small blister from one of the steri-strips that looks worse than the incision site. I had no pain or discomfort during or after. It reminds me that I've had some pain in life and done some weird-ass things with my body, including dozens of trigger point injections that were so uncomfortable that they'd give me atropine before it to make it so I couldn't faint.
This was probably the least painful thing I've ever done with my body. It hurt significantly less than standing in the elevator to travel three flights.
They took three cores and the online medical chart shows the results as non-malignant so that's awesome.
But I'm still thinking about dealing with this every six months and wondering if a preventative mastectomy might not be a good idea. I love my breasts, I do. They're fun and my lovers enjoy them as much as I do, but... That would also be some seriously choice tattoo space.
I'm thinking Washington Crossing The Delaware, but it's Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem.
Next time I talk with my primary care provider I'm going to make sure that she knows that I do not have a strong emotional connection to my breasts and that if there comes a time when top surgery might improve my quality of life I'm 100% there for it. It's probably something they put off for most people, but I'm all for not getting murdered by a part of my body that is perfect, but primarily decorative.