Touch Your Own Boobs – Be Self Aware

I received an email this morning (August 25, 2011)  from someone purportedly from the Communications and Information Branch at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care  (MOHLTC). In it, she writes the following:

“Ontario has one of the highest survival rates for breast cancer in the world, with nearly 90 per cent of women surviving the disease. Yet research provided by Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) reveals that more than half a million women eligible for Ontario s Breast Screening Program (OBSP) are not getting screened.

You can do your part in ensuring your loved ones aren t part of this statistic. The province of Ontario is encouraging early detection by expanding the OBSP. Women between the ages of 30 and 69 who are at high risk for breast cancer because of genetics or a personal or family history are now eligible to receive an annual breast screening MRI and a mammogram through the program.

Women over 30 are encouraged to talk to their family physician to discuss what breast cancer screening option is right for them, and for their mothers, friends and loved ones to do the same. Regular screening, combined with greater self-awareness and improvements in treatment, has been shown to save lives.

Women can visit www.ontario.ca/screenforlife and complete the  Time to Screen  tool to find out when it s the right time for them to get screened. They can also view videos of a former cancer patent outlining the importance of screening and Dr. Rene, a radiologist detailing the screening process [URL added by BloggerBarb - it's the only video I could find on screening]. Please feel free to include any of these links in your blog …” [added by BloggerBarb: here is a Google link to lots of videos on breast cancer screening]

Sage words indeed.

I have been getting mammograms for at least 10 years and although they didn’t catch my breast cancer, I was a pesty patient in my doctor’s office wondering what the pain was … so please, please, if you are reading this, talk to all the women you love in your life (sister, aunt, lover, wife, significant other — young and old alike) about self-examination if they are in a non-risk group and those over 40 who are at risk just for being alive at that age to get a mammogram.

And if you are in Canada and don’t have a family doctor … my question is why? Get yourself a doctor today! Don’t wait until you’re sick … don’t go into an emergency room … don’t use walk-in clinics all the time … they don’t know your history and may not think of cancer when you walk in with swollen glands or a lump that could also be a cyst.

Can’t find a family doctor? Did you know that you can check your local hospital’s web site to find new doctors accepting patients? Yes, it’s true … that’s how I found mine about 6 years ago when my other doctor left her practice to pursue environmental medicine: I stupidly waited too long to find a new doctor and yes, it was not easy — I think I interviewed about 3 or 4 doctors before finding the one I have now … who hopefully will be around long after I’m gone

Even though I don’t have a lot of faith in traditional mammography, I will continue to have annual mammograms and go for annual check-ups with my family doctor … and check-ups with my oncologist, too.

I had my annual mammogram for the uni-boob yesterday, together with more blood work … and I still have a lot more blood work to do within the next week or so.

After I shared my story about my so-called normal mammogram a year ago, and a few weeks later I was in a lot of pain, the technican shared her story …

She told me about her mother’s ovarian cancer 7 years ago. She shared with me that her mother did as I do and gets annual physicals and did all “the right things”.

Her mother had her physical, including a pap smear, in February of that year 7 years ago and everything appeared to be normal. A few months later in June, she keeled over in pain while cooking a meal for her family.

Six weeks later, her mother was dead. A tumour had grown so large that chemotherapy could not reduce its size nor save her life.

The technician said in 10 years, I’m the 2nd woman she knows that a mammogram didn’t see the cancer growing inside me. She said she does 21 mammograms a day … over 100 in a week … over 5,000 mammograms a year. That’s over 50,000 mammograms she’s done.

I’ll stop buying lottery tickets now since my odds are really horrible.

I was telling her about my blog and that I want to share as much information with other women as I can who may not be aware of women like me … and perhaps save a life or 2 … or at least get women to ask a lot of questions during annual examinations.

I told her about the digital mammography that’s available and seems to be only available in the USA. She said they are getting their first machine next week! She said there will be lots of false positives because it’s new technology. The images will be so clear that technicians and doctors won’t know what they’re looking at because they haven’t seen such clear images before.

I’ll take a false positive and have multiple mammograms any day over cancer! My life is not inconvenient.

Thankfully digi-tits comes to the Toronto area!