Bosom Buddy 

By TAD BARTIMUS

October is breast cancer awareness month; so are the other 11.
We are aware that, every day, breast cancer claims our mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, grandmothers, best friends, the lady down the block. We know that, after lung cancer, it is the most common form of cancer among American women. We know that, by age 30, a woman's chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer is one out of 2,212; by age 50 it is one out of 54; by age 80, it is one out of 10.
We know that THIS YEAR, 182,800 of us will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. By New Year's Eve, nearly 40,800 of us will be dead from it.
Thanks to one of the best information efforts in history, we also know that 97 percent of women are alive five years after diagnosis IF their breast cancer is discovered, and treated, before it spreads to their lymph nodes.
The American Cancer Society and numerous other organizations - through newspapers, magazines, television, radio and the Internet -- tell us we need a three-pronged approach to finding a lump: through self-examination, clinical examinations by a doctor or nurse and mammography. We all know this. But faithfully practicing it is another matter.
Some women do not regularly perform a self-exam, even as they stand, every day, reading the plastic reminder card hanging from their shower head. Some women put off a doctor's inspection of their breasts until they find themselves with an appointment for a flu shot or a bad cold. Some women postpone mammograms indefinitely.
We're talking enlightened, intelligent, savvy, conscientious, alert women, the ones who run households, raise children, work at demanding jobs.
So why the Russian roulette?
I'll try and answer that, for I am one of these women.
I know better, but I procrastinate anyway. I make inane excuses. I even lie to those who love me the most. Why? I have lost three friends to breast cancer. Several other friends are triumphant, but wary, survivors. For 20 years, I have written about this awful affliction, exhorting women to aggressively protect themselves through every means available.
So why am I being so dumb now? Because I'm afraid.
As a woman whose stock-in-trade is knowledge, I know too much. I'm a journalist who's researched and written about chemotherapy and radiation, who's seen the suffering these toxic treatments bring to patients and, by extension, their worried caregivers. I know how families struggle -- not only with the illness, but with each other - after a breast cancer diagnosis explodes like white-hot shrapnel in their lives, shattering the past, threatening the future. Certainly I know the statistics, the victories. But I also know about the pain and loss. 

There are, I suspect, a lot of us who talk the talk, have the prevention patter down cold when we're with our sisters but, when we're in our own bed at midnight, worry ourselves sick over news of the latest breast cancer diagnosis that's hit too close to home. Women, like me, who wonder: If I got it, would I be brave enough to go through everything it takes to survive? Be brave enough to face death? 
In the past two years I have made four appointments to have a mammogram. I canceled one because of bad weather, another because I had to leave town. The other two were missed on lame excuses because I lost my nerve.
What if the mammogram reveals a lump? And it's malignant? Then what? The coward in me instantly tells my brain: "Don't go there!" So I don't. I stick my head in the sand and, like Scarlett, promise "I'll think about it tomorrow." But always hovering, just on my periphery, is the knowledge that I am flirting with disaster. 
When I confessed all of this to my husband, he yelled: "What in the hell are you doing?"
I have no good answer. None of us who are hiding this dangerous secret do. So it's time we grew up. Stopped being duplicitous with friends and family who love us. We're smart women. We know what we have to do. We just need a little help.
My best friend has made two mammogram appointments. We'll go together, support one another, no matter what the outcome. I've asked her to be my breast cancer awareness buddy because I know, in my secret heart of hearts, that wearing a pink ribbon, walking in a Race For The Cure and paying lip service to prevention isn't going to save my life.
Every year millions of American women are brave enough to get a breast cancer reality check. It's time I become one of them. It's time for you to become one, too.







© 2000 The Women Syndicate

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