Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is breast cancer awareness month. I don't need any reminders of that month as that is when I became aware of my own breast cancer in 2004. I had always examined myself as we are taught to do. I had discovered a little lump in the summer of that year and went to the doctor who told me it was nothing and we'd just wait and see what happened. Well, we waited to see and it turned out to be something and showed up in my mammogram that I had every October. It also had shown up in the mammogram from the year before! So, I had a lumpectomy and 6 weeks of radiation thereafter. Everything went smoothly and I'm doing fine.

However, every October I begin to get edgy just thinking about going again for the mammogram. I don't know what I'd do if I had to go through all that again. My first thought is just shooting myself or the equivalent of that. I doubt I would ever have the guts to do anything like that, but you never know what you are capable of doing in times like that.

This October has had some happenings that I've found very amusing, far from the cancer theme. It seems all the republican candidates for president are falling all over themselves trying to become the most attractive candidate for the christian evangelicals who seem to be running the show. Some of them started out pro-choice but then realized the evangelicals didn't go for that, so now they are pro-life. They are also battling each other with different plans to get more money out of the middle class by more taxes, sales taxes, cutting medicare, and I think there are some that would even like to get rid of social security. No one can decide what is the best way to go. It scares me to think of having any one of them being leader of this country - someone who changes his views at the drop of a hat.

So, October is almost over. My mammogram is on Halloween. Good day for it! I think I'll go out and celebrate by scheduling an abortion . . . I actually won't do that as I don't need one, but it's nice to know that so far it's still legal. Who knows what will happen if the evangelicals have anything to do with it. But mammograms are still legal, so I hope women get them. Having a mammogram probably saved my life.