Mammo-, sono- and other such o-grams

The saga continues as I follow-up on my breast lump. My new specialist believes we should err on the side of cutting that sucker out, especially if my newly prescribed mammogram and sonogram don’t yield imaging sufficient for ultra-sound-guided biopsy. *Gulp*

So the day of the mammo/sono, as it is wont to be called, arrives and I await my tests in the secondary, fancy waiting room for breast imaging patients. My fellow waiters are all at least 10 years my senior; one of them has a daughter 3 years older than I. They start talking about how easy kids have it today, and how they can’t believe how they all have cellphones and never talk to each other anymore.  Nice black slacks and sensible shoes peek out from their medical gowns, unlike my skinny jeans and pink and blue converse. Don’t get me wrong, I do own sensible shoes. I just didn’t wear them to my mammogram…

Everyone’s heard what mammograms are like; many women have experienced the sensation. But most women my age don’t know first hand what it’s like. Here’s my take on the experience:

1. It is made painfully clear that they’re really just pieces of meat. You know what it sounds like when you drop a boneless chicken breast on your plastic cutting board? It’s like that. Except then the technician needs to smush it around a little to get the positioning right. Maybe she needs to pick it up and move it slightly; maybe there will be some flopping? Who knows, but it takes a minute to get your meat bags in the right place.
2. Yes. It does hurt. I mean, we can take it right? Sure, but that doesn’t make it suck less. They’re squeezing your boob in between two very strong, very flat pieces of plastic! I’m sorry, not squeezing: compressing. “A little more compression…ok, hold your breath!”

So that happened. Followed by a gooey 20 minutes with the ultrasound probe. I swear to god, you can never get all that gel off. Some even got on my purse. Awesome.

After much sonogramming, nothing came up in the imaging to support the palpable mass in my breast. The same thing happened to my mother after a mammogram and sonogram. “Healthy breast tissue, go home.” But then it was cancer. Whoops. Knowing this about my family history, the response to my imaging now is “Healthy breast tissue. Let’s cut it out!”

And so another chapter unfolds in the medical journal of my life. Stay tuned for a less medical update in my next entry about the NY Renaissance Faire!