I've posted this before but it's always worth reading again. An oldie but a goodie.



The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside out. I'm pretty sure Victoria's Secret doesn't have a bra for that

Suddenly, there was a loud popping noise. I looked down at my right breast to make sure it hadn't exploded. Nope, it was still flat as a pancake and still attached to my body

"Oh no!" Gail said loudly. These are perhaps, the words you least want to hear from any health professional. Suddenly, she came flying past me, her lab coat whipping behind her, on her way out the door. She yelled over her shoulder, "The machine's on fire, I'm going to get help!"

OK, I was wrong, 'The machine's on fire,' are the worst words you can hear from a health professional. Especially if you're all alone and semi permanently attached to A MACHINE and don't know if it's THE MACHINE in question. I struggled for a few seconds trying to get free, but even Houdini couldn't have escaped.

I decided to go to plan B: yelling at the top of my lung (the one that was still working). I hadn't seen anything on fire, so my panic hadn't quite reached epic proportions. Then I started to smell smoke coming from behind the partition. "This is ridiculous," I thought. I can't die like this. What would they put in my obituary? Cause of death: breast entrapment?

I may have inhaled some fumes because I started to hallucinate. An imaginary fireman rushed in with a fire hose and a hatchet. "Howdy, ma'am," he said. "What's happened here?" he asked, averting his eyes. "My breasts were too hot for the machine," I quipped, as my imaginary fireman ran out of the room again. "This is gonna take the Jaws of Life!"

In reality, Gail returned with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire.

She gave me a big smile and released me from the machine. "Sorry! That's the first time that's ever happened. Why don't you take a few minutes to relax before we finish up?"

I think that's what she said. I was running across the parking lot in my backless paper gown at the time. After I'd relaxed for a few years, I figured I might go back. But I was bringing my own fire extinguisher.

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Some things just make you shake your head and say, "Wow".

Originally Posted by Ebenezer
"There is a time when slapping a grandma might be the proper course of action. That you can't think of one simply means your imagination is weak. There is a time to shoot a teenager. And there is certainly a time for a preacher/prophet to advocate violence. I need not repent for these statements at all."

Digital mammography is state of the art. But-- compression is still required.

Try to schedule the mammogram for AFTER your period, and take a couple of ibuprofen before you go.

But- Temporary discomfort still beats dying of cancer by a long shot. If it were not for mammography, most likely I would be dead. Life is precious.

Here's some info on digital mammography.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/24...ams/index.html

Could this new technology keep a gal from feeling exactly like pizza going from the ball stage to crust -- flattened?

Alas, probably not.

"So far we have not been able to obviate the need for compression," said Dr. Carl D'Orsi, director of breast imaging at the Emory Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta.

Loosely translated that means the "smoosh" factor lives on.

But there are some pluses with digital mammography.

First, the dose of radiation exposure is lower than with traditional analog mammography. And we all know that is a number we want to keep as low as possible.

Also digital mammograms, which are computer files, can be stored better and shared more easily.

Not so for the older versions. Think of the difference between e-mail and snail mail.

And finally the digital image allows for a good bit of picture enhancement.

"We can change the brightness," D'Orsi said. "We can change the contrast, we can invert the contrast, we can magnify it, we can demagnify it. So there's a lot you can do now. "

"It's better than film in really one particular area, and that's the woman with dense breasts," he said. "By dense breasts, we mean a woman who has a fair amount of glandular tissue, breast tissue, related to the fatty tissue that's always present in the breast.

oh my goodness that was hillarious

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DJ, your "first" post was hilarious! I really needed a good laugh this morning. My first a frightening mess as well. I had mastitis while nursing my second child. Why they chose a mommogram to diagnose it is still beyond me. Yellow/green mucousy milk running everywhere...absolutely ridiculous and horribly painful. If cancer didn't run in my family, I'd probably never do it again.

Would it be worth it if they didn't pick the most inconvenient and embarrassing time for you to do it?

I'm glad you got a chuckle.

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Some things just make you shake your head and say, "Wow".

Originally Posted by Ebenezer
"There is a time when slapping a grandma might be the proper course of action. That you can't think of one simply means your imagination is weak. There is a time to shoot a teenager. And there is certainly a time for a preacher/prophet to advocate violence. I need not repent for these statements at all."