On January 31 our world lost another strong woman to breast cancer. Molly Ivins was a syndicated columnist who wrote about people, power, politics, and the absurdities of life. With humor and passion, whatever your position, she made you think. If you want to read more about her, check out 2dogs blog at http://twodogsbarking.blogspot.com/ .
I’m sad about Molly’s passing. This world needs more strong women who stand up for their principles, no matter what. I don’t want to write about her politics. I don’t want to distract myself from the larger issue here…. She kicked breast cancer in the ass for 7 years and kept on trudging.
Molly learned she had breast cancer in 1999 and described her treatments. “First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you,” she wrote. “I have been on blind dates better than that.”
When someone I care about is diagnosed with breast cancer (and there’s always someone it seems) it reminds me that it's time to go in for a mammogram AGAIN. God I hate that. But APPARENTLY it’s the only cost effective way that medical science has come up with for early detection. Now (gentlemen) let me give you a little clue about the mammogram experience from one of those joke emails that goes around.
Visit your garage at 3AM when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.
That is pretty damn accurate. Now, I have to ask, how come we can fly a jet over Pakistan and tell you what all those Pakistani people are eating for dinner; or park a van on a street in New York and peer into the private lives of skyscraper apartment dwellers, and yet this is the best medical science has come up with to check what’s up inside my ta-tas?
