General Chat

.......and isn't it good when you get the letter saying all is OK......see you again in a couple of years.....

Hi all - I'm little like Christmas Carole - have been going so many years now I got quite used to it - and not got any problems - but please everyone check with your healthcentre clinic if you have never been. It is sooo important to check. Jx

Hi Angel, a close friend of mine has breast cancer and after 6 chemo sessions begins her month long radiotherapy tommorow. It has made me so aware,

Good luck Catherine,

Caz xxx

nudge

Nudging because I think this is an important and informative thread.

Jean x.

.....and don't go into a panic if you get a recall letter after your first mammogram - I had a week of worrying only to be told it was a fuzzy photo and because it was my first they had nothing to compare it to. The nice lady at the clinic told me that quite a few folks get a recall first time for that reason - pity the lady on the van didn't mention that!!! Got the all clear and the doctor at the clinic couldn't have been nicer and more reassuring.

I had my 1st mammogran last month,
and it was just a bit uncomfortable!
maybe I had a very good nurse!
But thank God I had the all clear!
SO LADIES< DONT IGNORE THE LETTER!!!!!!!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxx

n

I had my first 'invitation' to a mammogram with my birthday cards on my 51st birthday!!!!

Like Carole & Janice, I'm small.
Squeezing the boobs wasn't too bad, but the pulling of the skin to get them in gave me an instant 'reverse' face lift LOL My neck was sore for a week afterwards!!
It's true you can't run off half way through, but I was 'secured' then the nurse was called away - I was left cradling the machine and a maintenence bloke walked in to fix something!! The look on his face was a picture LOL
I suggested he put his balls in but he just scurried off!!

maggie

nudge

My sister had a lump investigated and was told by the specialist he was 99 % sure it was cancer. But when she got her biopsy result it wasn't cancer, and the lump disapeared on it's own!

nudge it could save a life

n

nudge

nudge

nudge

I liked that one about the man walking in on the mammogram. In fact, I think all men should be required to witness one!

I've had a couple of those "recalls". On my very first, before I was 40, which was just intended to be the "baseline" for future comparison, there was a white blotch they couldn't identify. The suggestion was wait and see.

Well, I'd had a PAP smear where we could have waited and seen, but my doc had had a case where they'd done that and things went badly downhill. So I had the colposcopy -- microscopic biopsy -- and they didn't like the results, so I had the full cone biopsy: excision of the whole surface of the cervix. They didn't find anything. But I like the better safe, even if cervix-less, than sorry route.

So on that first mammogram, I insisted on follow-up. I had an ultrasound, with much palpation by the charming surgeon and his resident, a woman. Nothing they could find, so I was reassured. They figured it was one of those calcium deposits from adolescence.

Ten or 12 years later I had another suspicious spot, and a recall. This time they had to get the flesh (I'm pretty fleshy) right up under my damned armpit. And I had the world's most obnoxious technician. And they did it once, and she called in the head guy at the x-ray clinic, and they didn't think they'd got what they wanted, so they did it again.

I think the techs sometimes don't realize that for some of us, it is truly very very painful. For others, I'm sure it isn't. I was there, I was doing what I was supposed to do (which is good not just for me, but for the public health care system; preventive medicine is a lot cheaper than the alternative). Even though I knew it was going to hurt like hell. I thought I deserved a tiny bit of sympathy!

I'm in Canada. I gather than in the UK you actually get notices to get your age-50 mammogram -- great idea. Here, we have big publicity campaigns, and breast screening clinics -- you can either go there yourself when you hit the age, or have your doc refer you to a private clinic. (Health care plan in Canada pays 100% of the bills directly, but the services are operated privately.)

I think I may drag my partner along for my next one, just so he gets the idea. Although of course he couldn't stay in the room because of all the rays ... maybe I could videotape it. ;)

And now -- here's one for our sisters in the US.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=2

As we all know, there is no universal health care system in the US. About 1 in every 6 or 7 people there -- something like 45 million people -- have no health insurance.

This means that there are many women who do not have access to mammograms, because they cannot afford the cost. Sounds barbaric to us, but true.

If you go that site and click -- you can do it once a day -- an advertiser donates $0.05, five cents (about 2.5 UK pence), to the fund to pay for mammograms for women unable to pay for them.

"Since The Breast Cancer Site began in 2000, together we have funded free mammograms for more than 16,000 women in need! ... Visitors who made a purchase at The Breast Cancer Site store funded an additional 2,955 mammograms for women in need! All in all, in 2006, your caring actions at The Breast Cancer Site funded a total of 5,567 mammograms. Together we can do even more in 2007!"

Our sisters in the US thank us!

How old do you have to be before they send for you?
i had a breast lump removed when i was only 26, went to the docs one day and i was in a few days later having the op, thankfully it turned out to be benign, i did have a CT scan (i think thats what its called) a few weeks later, but they never mentioned a mammogram. im 37 now.

I'm not sure, but i think it is 50 but if bc runs in your family go to the doctors and asks for a mammagram
its your right every woman over the age of 30 should all have one i was only 19 when i found a lump it scared me to death as bc runs in my family but thank god it was nothing so please ladys and gents it you think you have got a lump get it sorted ,
claire