ten years ago at some point this year, i very politely refused my doctor's recommendation to have a mammogram. i had just turned 40.
you know 1 out of every 8 women gets breast cancer, he advised, very earnestly.
i looked him in the eye and said, you know what i think that really means?
what? he said.
seven out of eight don't, i said. i'll play those odds.
ten years later and im proud to say that not only have my boobs NEVER been mashed in the monster masher, but i'm still here, still alive and breast cancer free.
luck, contrariness or good genes?
you can put it down to anything you want.
just this week, the medical establishment conceded, for all intents and purposes, that i'm right. and you know what? im REALLY glad i didn't waste one minute of my forties hanging out in a waiting room for a mammogram. i never wasted one minute of my time rearranging my schedule to accomodate some machine's availability, and im really glad i never wasted one second of the last ten years of my life living in unnecessary fear or anxiety. im even happier i protected my hard-working girls from needless discomfort.
not only that, look at all the money i've saved the health care industry.
and how did i do it?
call me crazy, but i think it's because i just said no.
and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.
3 comments:
Yep!
I felt rather righteous this week in hearing the "news." That "good," nourishing and validating flavor of righteousness that comes when the world around you realizes what you've known all along.
Glad you learned the word no. I have had my girls mashed in the machine for no reason other than I'm now in my forties.
Someone pointed out that the down-side to mammograms is ten years of extra radiation for women. I've had them, but I don't go as often as the doctor would like. I have no history of breast cancer in my family, I nursed for close to 50 years, & my breasts are too big for them to see anything anyway. Now colonoscopies... I have them as often as they'll let me.
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