So Bethenny Frankel has a new book called A Place of Yes ? I think I have to enter to an extent A Place of Selfish. I think I need it to survive.
All these years I have championed other people and causes and places, etc. I think I have to take care of me now and it’s a pain in the ass. I would rather tell some local politicians they suck. No wait, I can still do that, right? (LOL)
Take the issue of a sleep aid. I told the surgeon’s office I was not sleeping. Her office was supposed to call something in. I don’t know what because I have never taken anything (nor asked for anything before, either). Anyway, surgeon’s office called, protocol is I call my primary care physician. So I did. Six hours ago.
There is nothing called into my pharmacy.
I find this a bit annoying because I have never asked. I am not asking for a family sized bottle of Valium a la that scene in the movie “Working Girl”, just something for a couple of days to make my head slow down at night.
I did however, get some sleep today and feel more normal. I guess part of me is just expecting me to plow on through this, only this is different, isn’t it?
The amazing thing I am discovering not even a week into this is the sisterhood of this disease. Every day someone else tells me they have had breast cancer or someone they know has had it. Ladies? I know I am in good company, I am not in denial, but again I have to say I would rather not be part of these statistics.
And speaking of statistics, something on NBC10 today has caught my eye – the whole thing about women getting fewer mammograms – if no one listens to another thing I write or say on this blog, it would be this:
I got regular mammograms. I found this lump, this thing a year ago after my ex had his mid-life crisis and left. I did everything I was supposed to do – mammograms, etc, and even a year later multiple mammograms and breast ultrasound later – this cancer inside me did not present as abnormal – it took a needle biopsy to do that. I think we need access to MORE testing, not LESS.
So, you might say, why bother with mammograms if it did not show up anything abnormal in me? Well to be honest I think as women we have to fight for the right to choose with our bodies and that includes mammograms and pap smears. We need more testing approved easily and available, not less.
If I was one of those statistical women referred to in these recent news reports who ignored mammograms and female oriented healthcare…well, I could be a hell of a lot worse off.
And I do know that most healthcare providers in this area offer mammograms to even those without health insurance and I have been told they won’t break the bank. But you have to ask. Learn to ask.
But once again as I enter into this I think healthcare “reform” has to mean more. I am not going to get into the dynamics of the argument except to say that for women, we need more. We need access to things like Einstein is working on – tomosynthesis mammograms.
I have always been proactive about my mammograms as my paternal grandmother had breast cancer. And she survived it in a time when oh the cards were so stacked against women – the 1940’s. She lived into her 90’s. So here’s hoping that strength of will and constitution lives inside me. But my whole point here is NOT the I,me,my of it all – it’s the reality of statistics I am now living.
Check your boobs regularly, ladies. We’re a long time dead. And I don’t know about you, but I am not ready for that. I have decades left of living to do.
Ending the day better than it began. I had some good medicine in the form of a hug on the run from someone kind of special. And a phone call from another special friend going through her own thing – M.S.
Into this life a little rain must fall. Just keep looking for the sun – it’s there.
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