Knowledge is Power

                                                          

Every year in October I plead, beg and preach about the same thing. I give examples of neglect, I explain the seriousness, I describe the various outcomes, and I try my very best to give encouragement.

Because let’s face it, no one wants to do it. It’s not what anyone would describe as comfortable in the least, it’s a bit scary, and some would say, it’s just downright painful.

I have personally experienced all of the above emotions, but I still do it every single year. I still ramp myself up for the chore before me, make my appointment, and then I go and sit. I sit among chairs full of women.

Some of those women are there for their annual appointments’, some for second readings/more extensive testing, and some are there for things that none of us ever want to think about happening to us or anyone else that we know.

                                                                             

I have been to that place for two out of three of those things, many times now. It’s never any less nerve-wracking and it’s certainly never any fun.  It has always turned out in the favor of grateful and blessed, but my grand, at the roads it has taken to get there at times. Three or four weeks can seem like a lifetime when you are waiting on results.

So, we all sit and watch one another, trying to imagine our neighbor-woman’s plight; nervous and waiting for the unknown that always seems to go hand in hand with these visits.

                                                                      

And then a name is called, we look around anxiously to see who is the next to go through those closed doors ahead of us all, the doors that lead to all the places that can bring comfort as well as dread and the words we never want to hear.

I’m well aware of what the odds are – 1 in 8 women are at risk for developing breast cancer. In the great scheme of things that doesn’t sound like so much, but it also sounds like it will happen to many more women that you may know personally, than you could ever have imagined.

By the time I was 48 years in old, in five years’ time, I would personally know and be friends with, 6 different women who would have positive results for breast cancer. One would succumb to her disease, four would beat it and move on, and one is currently on round two of one of the most rare/deadly forms of breast cancer which is Inflammatory Breast Cancer and it presents itself in 1% to 5% of all women.

                                                                

So, I ask this/beg this/plead this as I do every year - get your annual mammograms. Every single year – never skip a year. Because if you have ever known someone who tested negative one year and positive the next, then you MUST know the damage that could potentially be done if you were to skip a year in between. Twelve little months, coupled with neglect, could challenge the chances of living a full and complete lifetime. 

Love  your family, but love yourself the most – and get tested.