Hold your breath and count to ten

~ Tara R.

I am apparently quickly becoming a woman “of a certain age.”

This is my birthday week… yeah, I am going to celebrate all stinkin’ week, that’s how I roll. Yesterday I turned 49, and I’ve got a lot going on to celebrate – not my birth, but my life.

Monday I went in for my yearly physical. My doctor gave me a copy of this magazine. Yes, she actually told me it would only be a few years before I was dealing with… well, you know… *whispers* menopause.

My response was a resounding, “bring it on!” My body temp is about two degrees below normal all the time. I am incessantly cold. I embrace the idea of hot flashes and night sweats. During the summer I keep going behind the Mister and bumping up the settings on the thermostat, trying to keep it warmer inside the house. And, I still wear fuzzy wool socks and sweats. Winter months find me bundled up like I live in Antarctica and not on Florida’s Gulf Coast. I will welcome the natural heating.

Tomorrow is my annual knead-n-squeeze. Since I have a very high incidence of breast cancer in my family (really, many types of cancer) I have conscientiously had a mammogram every year for the last 15 years. (I got my baseline when I was 35.) Ladies! Do your monthly self-exams and if you’re 40 or older, start getting those mammos. Find a friend and go together, make it a spa day, anything you need to do to get it done. No excuses.

Men! Listen up…. you can get breast cancer too. Because screening in men isn’t as routine as for women, it’s typically found in later, more critical stages. Get any tissue changes or lumps checked out by a physician. It could easily save your life. According to the American Cancer Society, about 2,100 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, and 450 will die from the disease.

I am a huge proponent of mammograms. Sometimes I make fun of all the horror stories about how traumatic these screenings are, but trust me on this… they are not that bad. If you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, you can make it through a mammogram. What is more important? A few seconds (and it really is merely seconds) of discomfort compared to undetected cancer and possible death?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I always schedule my annual health screenings during this month mainly because it’s easier to remember if it’s tied to my birthday. If you’re not of an age where a mammogram is recommended, and you haven’t started self breast exams, start now. Have annual gyno exams, read, ask questions, be familiar with your own body, do whatever you have to do, be proactive in protecting yourself against this insidious enemy. Early detection of any cancer is vital. Don’t let fear keep you from doing something so simple that could quite literally save your life.


Submitted as part of Shell’s “Pour Your Heart Out” writing prompt at Things I Can’t Say. Please stop by to read the other posts, and give a little comment love.

18 thoughts on “Hold your breath and count to ten”

  3. I do self exams every month. 1st of the month. Just for shits and grins. And I ALWAYS volunteer to help out any woman I know with exams – because, you know, I’m a nice guy. 🙂

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  4. Happy birthday! My mom is in the throws of *whisper* menopause – so I always freeze a little more over there now LOL.

    I have a couple more years before those screenings begin and even though breast cancer isn’t in my family, it has to start somewhere… that is always in the back of my head.

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  6. Brava, Tara, for passing on such good advice. Mammograms are so very important, as are self-exams. Many of you know my daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer at 33. It was a self-exam that caught it, even though she’d been seeing a doctor regularly because she was pregnant.

    I also suggest that those of you with a strong history of breast cancer in your family consider getting tested for the BRCA gene mutation. If a woman has inherited the gene mutation, the risk for getting breast cancer and ovarian cancer are much greater, and the risk gets higher as one gets older. My daughter tested positive. Because the mutation is inherited from a parent, I was convinced I would have it. I know a lot of people just don’t want to know, but I knew I couldn’t live with NOT knowing. I had come to grips with prophylactic removal of both breasts and my ovaries. As a friend said, what the heck, I don’t need them anymore anyway. Well it turns out I was not the carrier of the gene mutation.

    Just something to consider. October is breast cancer awareness month. Be aware.

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  7. I have been having them since I was 36, high risk family and then lost my best friend when she was 40 … I want to scream from the rooftops … go, go , get one now.
    And that birthday thing and the checking the next boxes for your age … just wrong!

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  8. Hey, Tara, thanks for the reminder about breast health. My Mom has had breast cancer twice, and my paternal Grandmother died from it. I’m having my first mammogram this year, and I am 34. Let’s rock early detection!!!

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  9. Happy Birthday month! I love it! I’ve had to get my mammo’s at 35 as well and boy have they come a long way since then!!! It’s become pretty easy to do and I am usually in and out in under 30 minutes–from start to finish. Lovely post.

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