Calling All Warriors...

A very dear friend of mine from all the way back to the covered wagon days of high school is have a mastectomy today. I'm asking all of you to say a prayer, shine the white lights and call all the angels to look after her and all the other people living with and fighting this disease.

I have learned so much from her about different choices available depending on when the cancer was found, how big the spot and the type of cancers. I also am learning lot about choices you have when you have a mastectomy. For instance, I did not know that on the cosmetic reconstruction you don't even have to have a nipple. You can get a tattoo if you prefer, of whatever you want on your breast instead of a nip.

To give you an idea of my friend's outlook on life and her incredible sense of humor, when she was telling me about having choices, she had me in the floor laughing so hard I was crying. What nailed me was when she said she was thinking about getting the recycle logo tattooed in case she had a senior romance she figured it would be a definite conversation piece. When I talked to her last Friday I asked her what she had decided... a nipple or a tattoo. She said she thought she might like to get a dahlia... a beautiful pink dahlia, not a red one lest anyone would think she was a "hussy".

With an attitude such as that I have no doubts that she is going to do great but it never hurts to call out the forces and ask for protection for my friend, I'll call her Teacher. I'll call her Teacher because she does and has taught school for a bunch of years and she has taught me so much in just this short span of time since her diagnosis about breast cancer and the so very many treatment options that are out there nowadays... And also about laughter in the times of facing adversity.

And,hey you all, go get your mams slammed. Do it! It can save your life.

Mammeries Are Made Of This....

One of the more wonderful things (not) about being a female person of the human race is the mammogram. I'm not as vigilant about getting my mams slammed as I should be because it just flat is painful. I know it had to be a man that had it in for women that designed this machine of pain and wonder. Pain for the obvious reason and wonder because of it's ability to spot possible breast cancer. I know that it has saved many, many women, but it still hurts...

I mean, you're talking about someone who was sooooo flat-chested when I was younger that my Bro gave me, for Christmas, a t-shirt with fried eggs silk-screened on it. And that was only because he couldn't find t-shirt with mosquito bites on it. I was so flat-chested that my little momma, who rarely teased about anything that might hurt someone's feelings, said she was going to take me and get "FRONT" tattooed on my chest so if I was ever in an accident the E.R. folks would know which side was up. Mom loved Andy Griffith and had heard his motorcycle wreck (and at that time I rode one) routine, so I'm sure that's where she got that idea.

As I've gotten older and everything is settling and a few more pounds were put on I can actually buy a bra that mostly fits... in the smaller sizes, but it is dang hard to get used to wearing one after sixty years of tank tops under your t-shirts. Anyway, my doctor insisted, so I went in day before yesterday.

You know the drill. They take you in and tell you to change into this little cape like drape and to join them in their torture chamber. They have you step up against the bottom shelf, then they grab whatever there is to grab and pull (pull in my case 'cause there isn't enough to push around) until they get it like they want it and then they step on that foot feed for the top to come and smash down on my poor little booblet.

About the time, and I never have figured out quite how the tech's senses it, you think you are going to (a). scream; (b). faint; or (c) punch them out, they take their foot off the pedal and it stops. Now you are pinned in by your flattened part and any movement on my part will cause more pain.

. They have stepped out of reach and you can't smack 'em. The tech steps behind their protective barrier and snaps a picture of your poor slammed gland. Then they come out, release you and do it all over again with the other booblet that has, in the meantime, taken a clue from the first one and tried to crawl back into my rib cage and hide, alas, to no avail.

So we get the horizontal shots taken and then we get to the obliques that pretty much feel like they are leaving your little munchkins looking like this: \ \ . The tech got the left one in all cattie-wompus, slams it and takes the photo. Now I'm yakking with her all along and she is staying behind her barrier and looking at her computer with a puzzled look on her face, poking on different keys and says... something is wrong.... with my computer.

Whew, I hate long pauses in a situation like that. She gets on the phone and calls and talks to another tech who comes over and presses computer keys and still can't get the damn thing working. My tech told me she was going to another room and see if she could pull up the horizontal shots on another computer because she didn't want to have to shoot them over again if she didn't have to... thank you very much, I'm thinking.

She was able to get the first two on the other computer and only had to redo the first oblique so that saved a squash or two, and she got the second oblique without another problem. She let me go and I was dressed and outta there as quick as I could go.

They were working on the first machine as I walked by the first room I was in, trying to figure out what had happened to it. I decided against stopping in and telling them that it was probably caused by....
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wait for it....
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my MAGNETIC PERSONALITY !!!

Thank you very much!!!

Oh, yes, I must add that I have been told by women with bodacious ta-tas that I'm lucky. If you have mongo mams they have to squash 'em harder than mine because of the density of their breasts. You have my deepest sympathies.