What a Boob

I had my yearly mammogram the other day. Just about six months later than I was originally scheduled. I just couldn't deal with having it done this summer. I had a lot of things going on, and couldn't seem to find a good time to schedule it. But mostly, I didn't want to do it. You see, I had come off a couple of years of having to be scanned every six months because I have dense breast tissue in my breasts, which would sometimes show some suspicious shadowing. I even had to have at least one sonogram. It was a drag. They never found anything wrong, but it was still one of those things that sort of hang over you. And with all the other stuff and scans I have done in the past year or so I guess I just felt like I had enough.

But I decided to bit the bullet last week and scheduled the mammo. I wasn't really worried, but there isn't any woman I know who goes in there for their appointment with a "Yippee!!!" feeling. The technician was nice, and truly tried to minimize my discomfort as much as anyone could who was mashing your breasts between too very hard and cold surfaces.
My gynecologist's office happens to be right next door. The technician asked me if I was heading over there after the appointment, as some folks combine their mammo with their yearly exam. I wasn't, so she said if I didn't mind waiting, she could have the radiologist look at my results right then and there and if they thought I needed another scan, they could consult immediately with my doctor's office. I said sure, but it was a little tense ten minutes.
She finally came out and said I was free to go and apologized for the wait, but that my scans had looked so different from last year they really wanted to take a close look. That freaked me out for a moment and I asked her what she meant. Apparently my dense breast tissue wasn't so dense anymore. I asked if she minded showing me, and she took me in to look at the scans, from last year and this year, side by side. The 'suspicious" areas were diminished, and some completely gone. Apparently one of the perqs to aging (and having a hysterectomy) is that your hormones are no longer playing such great havoc. By next year they might look even less dense. So there was a "Yippee!!!" feeling, after all.