Good Medical News

There's good news on two fronts. While Daddy was getting his post-hospital checkup, I asked Paul to have the doctor examine his back for a couple of weird, dark, irregular-shaped bumps that had recently sprung up. I was of course fearing melanoma. I was also wondering, if that were the diagnosis, whether we'd decide to treat it or not. Daddy's spoken several times on not wanting any more surgeries, and there would be too many days when he'd not remember the why of whatever procedures, just the pain. And wouldn't he die first from something else anyway at this point? But the word came back not to worry. That's not what they were.

Further, whatever they were, one had crusted over, dried up, and disappeared except for a red spot on the skin surface. I'd thought they'd done something to it at the hospital and hadn't bothered to mention it to me. Whatever.

The other good news is mine, and good in three ways. It was mammogram time again - OK, way past time due to lack of health insurance - and I scheduled it for last week. The first piece of good news is they use digital mammography (in a mobile truck) and this means when you get your boobs mashed, this way they don't have to mash them quite so hard. It's actually uncomfortable, not painful the way it used to be. And speaking of pain, I requested a chair for the procedure and got it! She argued with me that I'd only have to stand for 5 minutes. I told her that was 4 1/2 minutes too long. She rolled in the chair from her mini-office, the only one in the unit, and I returned the courtesy by returning the chair as quickly as possible. The final piece of good news was that the results were perfectly normal.

As expected.

I've never thought that breast cancer was a worry. True, Mom developed it, but I'm convinced that doesn't count. Not because she waited until she was in her 80s to start, and it was removed and had no recurrances. No, it was because I'm convinced that the only reason she developed it in the first place is that she was receiving HRT for years at such high levels that she was still having periods until the diagnosis, when she stopped them cold turkey. Not only that, but due to her wearing a pacemaker by then, and being unable to receive radiation treatments, she was put on a hormone blocking drug that cleaned all the estrogen out of her system. Talk about instant menopause! If you're going to do that to a system, you may as well do it to one young enough to tolerate the symptoms better!

I've never considered HRT as a desired possibility for me. Besides, I breezed through menopause almost without noticing, except for ceasing to need tampons, Halleluiah! Hot flashes? What hot flashes? I did notice a handful of what might be considered warm flashes, but I couldn't be sure. And since those pesky periods lasted until the age of 57, my body might as well do me the courtesy of sending them away gracefully!