First mammogram-Freaking the Heck Out!

[travelgirl77]

BC is what started my HA. I have dallied with other diseases, chiefly brain tumors and colon cancer...with ovarian and pancreatic cancer on the side, but BC is my boogy man for HA. I have checked my breasts for years...I do it all the damn time. My son even commented on it and yes, I am ashamed to admit that. Anyway, I am 44 this year and decided if I can get the Covid shot (which I did) I can schedule my mammogram. So, it is tomorrow morning and I cannot eat or concentrate. I am afraid they will find something and even more afraid that they won't and I will be relieved only to find a lump a few months from now which will be really sinister. I have known two women who that has happened to-clear mammos and then 3 months later, a cancerous lump. I feel damned if I do, damned if I don't right now. And, I am supposed to do this yearly through age 55? How do you do this regularly? I am just sick over this. I did tell my two best girlfriends I have it scheduled, so they can text me and make sure I keep the appointment. YUCK.

[Carys]

I do it yearly (though our screening programme here is currently 3 yearly from 50 years old, hopefully that will change soon) and the only way I manage it,and it makes me feel dreadful leading up to it and the two weeks waiting for the results, is by repeating to myself the following - mammograms are a choice, nobody has to have them, they are screening, they aren't the reason to feel fear. The reason to feel fear is NOT having them and having a cancer found too late. Screening happens so that anything sinister can be found early and treated, anything found early is very treatable in the vast majority of cases.

Yes, of course there are cases where something isn't seen by the mammo, it doesn't catch everything all the time, and that is why we also need to do monthly examinations. However, I will say this, if you are having yearly screening then the chances of anything not being at very early stages is very very slight. If someone finds something 3 months later, in all honesty it might not even have been there at the time of mammogram. Living with doing the mammograms isn't fun, its not easy if you are anxious, but trust me on this - if you didn't attend and at your next one found something that was more advanced, and far more difficult to treat, you wouldn't forgive yourself.