My mother had breast cancer and a radical mastectomy when she was 49. Because of that, and an abundance of caution, I have been getting mammograms annually for what seems like at least half my life. I have to say that the machines may have gotten better at the imaging, but they have gotten worse at the procedure. I had my annual exam on Tuesday. The hospital upgraded to the 3-D imaging machine and it was even more uncomfortable than any previous machine. I never complain about the compression. After all the closer that they can smash your tissue, the better the image. But the whole put your foot here, lift that elbow half an inch, shove your face into this piece of plastic that doesn't fit a human face at all--that's just crazy. This new one moves in one direction and then in another. The technician says, "Don't breathe," then, "You can breathe," and then less than one second later, "Okay, don't breathe." I am glad my scan showed everything is all right, but I need to get some of these young women who come to me with ambitions of being either doctors or bio-medical engineers to improve these stupid machines.
There is no way a man would let his testes be treated this way and doctors seem adept at diagnosing testicular cancer with ultrasound. Yes, I know the tissue is different but somehow the women are being subjected to the medieval torture while the men have the medical advances--again.
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