Breast Cancer Awareness feature

Thought you might want to read a feature I've written for a women's lifestyle magazine. This is dedicated to my friend Karen Gillis. Because she's AWESOME! :)

Big or small; let’s save them all!
Like it or not, we all have them. Little. Large. Firm. Soft. Some which pass the pencil test, others that swing pendulously somewhere around your navel. The sheer diversity of knockers is immense. But whatever you’ve been blessed with, your breasts need looking after.
Recent research shows that more and more women over the age of forty-seven, are being called for routine breast cancer screening but are delaying booking their appointments. In an alarming number of cases, some are simply not going at all.Earlier this year, I visited my doctor regarding a pain in my left breast. I’d had it on and off for about six months. She examined me and neither felt nor saw anything to cause alarm but because the pain was in only one breast, she referred me to the Breast Clinic. I felt apprehensive but seeing as no lump had been detected, I was confident I was absolutely fine and the pain must be down to the fact I was trying to squeeze my 36G hooters into a 34F bra in the vain hope that they might ‘look a bit smaller’.I was telephoned the very next day with an appointment for a mammogram in a fortnights’ time. As the day loomed closer, I started to get a little jittery but as I strolled into the clinic with my partner, just a few days after my forty-fifth birthday, I was more concerned about my breasts exploding in the mammogram machine than anything sinister being discovered.I sat in the waiting room, surrounded by women just like me, some younger, some older, some who were obviously going through treatment and others who were there for their five-year check. I was amazed at just how many of us there were.I was called in to see the surgeon and she examined me. Like my GP and myself, she could feel nothing abnormal. I asked her if the mammogram hurt having been told it was a similar pain to ‘trapping your tit in the fridge door’. Now, I don’t know about you, but that particularly harrowing ordeal has never happened to me before so I had no idea what to expect. The surgeon laughed and said it may be a little uncomfortable but it didn’t hurt. I almost fell of my chair when the nurse in the consulting room with us raised her eyebrows and asked her how the hell she knew that, seeing as she’d never had one before! I frowned and told her that she needed to practice what she preached and maybe give it a whirl.I was ushered through into the mammogram room, with its mood lighting and monster machinery. I eyed The Puppy Pulveriser suspiciously and was told to strip to the waist. Within seconds, I’d been contorted into a very peculiar lopsided position with breast number one lifted and arranged, like a loaf of bread about to be sliced, on the flat-plate. The mammographer turned a dial, the upper plate moved down and my breast proceeded to flatten. I braced myself. But the pain never came. And it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. In fact, I hardly felt  a thing.Mammogram over, I was told to dress and sit back in the waiting room. If the mammogram was clear I could go home. Great! Ordeal over!Seconds later I was guided into another dimly-lit room and told somebody would be with me shortly. A radiographer appeared and informed me my mammogram was normal but because my breast tissue was very dense, I needed an ultrasound. I almost told him there was no need to insult my breast tissue but I didn’t think he’d get the joke.I whipped my bra off yet again and he asked me where I’d been feeling the pain. He put the transducer on my boob, pressed down a little and said four words that I will never forget. You have a tumour. The following few minutes were a blur. I was just about to go home, now I’m bloody dying. At first he tried to aspirate the tumour in case it was a fluid-filled cyst. It wasn’t. Next came anaesthetic and four separate biopsies. I was cleaned, stitched and patched up. I was told my tumour was a double tumour connected by a stalk. All I could visualise was a couple of vine tomatoes growing in my boob. I burst into floods of tears and the nurse gave me a hug. The tumour was measured, I was told not to worry and I’d be called back in two weeks time for the results.Two weeks time… The most anxious, frightening, exhausting two weeks of my life. I prepared myself for bad news. I booked a hair appointment to have my long hair lopped off. I even mentally planned my own funeral.Fourteen traumatic, tear-soaked days later I was given the all-clear. My tumour was a benign fibroadeoma that had probably been lurking there since I was a teenager. The relief was overwhelming. I went out and got drunk on champagne.But the stark realisation is, many, many women don’t get the all-clear. 49,900 women get diagnosed with breast cancer each year. That’s one hundred and thirty women a day. Putting it into visual terms, imagine all the mums in the average school playground at home time. THAT many women.Early detection is the key to survival. If it wasn’t for the ultrasound I received, my hidden tumour would never have been detected. I was fortunate. I didn’t have cancer. But at least I now know I have a couple of cherry tomatoes residing in my left boob. How many women out there right now, are walking around, oblivious to the fact that they too have tumours? If you can’t feel a lump, how can you possibly know it’s there? And that is why 32 women a day die from this terrible disease. Quite simply, they get diagnosed too late.Whatever your fears, your anxieties, your concerns about attending routine screening appointments, the bottom line is they could save your life. Ok, you will have to endure the The Puppy Pulveriser but hey, it’s no worse than getting your tit trapped in the fridge door and I’m pretty sure Anastasia Steele’s bangers encountered much more discomfort during a manhandling by Christian Grey than you will ever encounter having a mammogram. If, like me, you’re breast tissue is intellectually challenged, insist on a follow-up ultrasound. If a lump is found, don’t panic. Eight out of ten lumps are benign. And if you do end up joining The Club, as it is affectionately known, just remember breast cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer in the world. You will receive the best possible treatment from our wonderful NHS and you WILL get better.Remember the only person who can save you is you. When you get that letter, head straight for the phone, make that call and make like you’re in Mr. Grey’s Red Room.