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Showing posts with label ides of March. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ides of March. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Beware the ides of March

That would be tomorrow,the ides, most famously recalled in the soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar,  but perhaps tomorrow will arrive sans snow and full of sun.  For anyone unfamiliar, Google the ides and there is  a plethora of information and websites.  Today there was a pale cast to the sky amplified with an early AM phone call of not so welcome tidings, pre Ides.  Yesterday I had my annual mammography and this morning the radiologist office called to require my returned presence--my left boob is in question, recalled, if you will.  This has never happened before to me, so while I am keeping a positive front, I am concerned.  I have learned that 1 in 10 women have a recall on their routine mammography screening. 

Mayo clinic mammo photo  I have never seen this technician

The clinician  yesterday seemed not as about business as  what I've had in the past, she neither squeezed, compressed nor twisted me in standing and sideways positions as I have been  done to before.  She took only one frontal and one side shot per boob.  I am accustomed to more agony and photos and so perhaps I must return for my fair share.  
When the unwelcome call came that I would have to go to La Crosse where they have greater equipment, I  joked, "what my boob has outgrown Onalaska?  I have had no change in cup or bra size"  Both clinics are just across the river but I have preferred Onalaska, the newest.  While the clinician laughed, she proceeded to offer other times for my left boob recall.    I am concerned and thinking of what ifs simultaneous to making a joke and shrugging it off.  After all, why worry now, do not borrow trouble which can come time enough.  Still, my left boob, favored side on which I sleep, bigger of the pair, is in question; I have had no symptoms nor concerns.  I am blessed to have Mayo clinic and a doctor who is a professional worry wart and while it could be nothing I think about the women whom I buried after they lost their battles with breast cancer and I think about survivors and pink today and I say, "time will tell, wait and see...."    
A large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine proved that isn’t the case.  All women have a 5% to 15% chance of being recalled. It doesn’t mean you have breast cancer. In fact, the odds are against it.   Radiologists are looking for two main signs of cancer: mass (tumors) and calcification. When a woman gets regular annual mammograms the radiologist compares the current year’s views with last year’s. If anything looks different or develops, returns for additional views or studies are taken to tease out what is being seen. Women develop benign tumors which may grow larger but do not spread to other parts of the body and calcifications all the time. These are quite common and include cysts, fibroadenomas, and solid masses. Calcifications occur most often simply as a result of the natural aging process from the degeneration of tissue"

I think of that old comical Mammogram poem that has made the email rounds for ages and copied in old xerox machines  prior to that.  It is online for the looking but I recall some lines long ago memorized, .... For years and years they told me, "Be careful of your breasts."   Don't ever squeeze or bruise them, and give them monthly tests.  So, I heeded all their warnings.....and protected them by law.... Guarded them very carefully, and always wore a bra.....   and on it goes.....I do not want to repeat it in entirety because I find it tedious to have reiterations, just as some late comers to email repeat and recirculate old articles, jokes, fables....so I refrain. 

Uncle Carl  Third or Fourth grade
Another thing, the month of March now feels
Aunt Jinx, Virginia
Second grade photo 
strange because I have two less  birthday cards to send; two cards for which I would search to find just the right sentiment.  

 March had birthdays of my late Aunt Jinx and Uncle Carl.  She was born March 1, 1921 and would have been 92 this year.  She was mom's older sister.  Uncle Carl, Mom's older brother was born March 21, 1918 and would have been 95 this year.   She died in 2009 and he in 2011.  The last of my elderlies, the last of the old family.  Now I am the old family. 

Love this photo of my late  aunt and uncle taken on one of my visits, June 2008, sitting on his porch, their lives went downhill after this visit.  Notice both reflecting in the same pose, they laughed later, he saying, "oh she always copied me."  Isn't it always something.....hold the good thoughts.