Mysteriously Quiet

I know it may seem strange that a blog about boobs and breast cancer is mysteriously quiet about Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of breast cancer awareness month. I like pink, but that's not why I wear it.

The way I see it...I'm aware of breast cancer all the time, every month.

What gets me, is that they preach early detection. Early detection means if you're 40. That's when you have access to the "Titty Technology". That's when you'll start getting your mammos. (You may have a baseline at 35, and only if your doctor is progressive and believes in prevention...more are starting to do this, which is good. Yet, I say it should be even earlier.)

I've asked doctors across the country why not just screen earlier. Mostly, it's because the younger you are, the denser the tissue. This makes a mammo hard to see and interpret. So, they recommend breast self-exams with clinical breast exams starting in your 20s. (Cancer Prevention and Early Dectection Facts and Figures, breast cancer, p.30)

The problem is that if your breasts are lumpy and the tissue is dense, it's difficult to tell. 

In my case, which I consider lucky,I was getting mammos. (I had my first one at about 20 years old and yearly starting at 35.) No breast exam, self or clinical, would have caught my cancer. Was I lucky to have had a family history that warranted early mammograms? Did my aunts have to die so that I could benefit from early detection? That's why I was getting the mammos - family history. The rub is that family history only accounts for about a quarter of all new cases of breast cancer. (Family History, Inheritance, and Breast Cancer Risk) 

I think about how big the tumor would have been if I had to have waited until I was 40...and how much harder would it have been to treat?

Should you pay attention to your breasts, do self-exams, and look for changes? Absolutely.

My beef is that early detection is key, yet all opportunities for early detection aren't offered to everyone. Many of the young gals I met at the Young Survival Coalition found their cancer due to a lump...what if they had gotten an MRI at 20? Or 25? (MRIs are better with dense tissue, but they're expensive, and I believe only used after a mammo has picked something up. Digital mammos are better than the old mammo machines.)

If it's caught early, it is very treatable. Unfortunately, no one's looking diligently in the age group where it can make a big difference between life and death.

Fact is, they have to weigh the numbers. Health insurance isn't about ensuring you're healthy. It's about figuring where the money is best spent. The average age of occurence with breast cancer is 61 (www.breastcancer.org).

But, if you're younger, the disease has more years in which it can return, and it seems to be more aggressive - many times because it's had time to grow...and you, reader, should be able to answer this question. Why has it had time to grow? Because no one was looking for it.

And we seem to be back where we started. I can get myself all worked up over this. I try not to.

It's the "Cancer Catch-22".