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Mammogram

January 8, 2012 in Health, Life, Photos | 1 comment

It’s not very often that you’re asked, “Are you wearing deodorant?” and then handed a wipe to remove it. (Deodorant shows up on the x-rays as calcification.) The mammogram wasn’t for especially urgent matters, just luck of the draw.

I had heard that it was painful if you had small breasts, so I was ready for pain. It was an ordeal, but I’ve experienced much worse. The tech helped shoved me forward into the machine. The procedure involved much shoving and maneuvering my torso forward while a glass plate flattened my boobs in a way I didn’t know was possible—a type of magic trick/medieval torture technique, I believe?

It only really hurt for my right side, but the discomfort was tolerable otherwise.

23andMe and I

September 16, 2011 in Health, Life, Science, Technology | 2 comments

Last month I was lucky enough to get a “friends and family” discount code last month for $50 off of 23andMe, a consumer genetics company offering very basic genotyping (thanks, Anthony!). What they look at are called SNPs, or snips—your genotypes, information at certain locations on your chromosomes you’ve received from your parents.

What is most valuable is the raw data, which is available for download in a non-proprietary format. Through using 3rd-party software with the raw data, I’ve been able to learn more than 23andMe reveals. (The raw data also comes in very handy if you’re not 100% European because 23andMe has a self-acknowledged Eurocentric model.)

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23%

August 19, 2011 in Health | 3 comments

Before going in to a genetic counselor, I had pegged my own risk at ~25% for reasons I couldn’t fully explain. It just seemed right as a lifetime chance for developing breast cancer, based upon my family history. I didn’t know there were actually risk assessment models designed to do this very thing.

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Thoughts on Komen, Race for the Cure

April 30, 2010 in Health, Life | 2 comments

I grew up with the pink ribbons and the races. One of my earliest memories involves going to Race for the Cure and checking out vendor booths. Mimicking my older relatives, I took a turn squeezing what years later I realized was a prosthetic breast, to be placed in a bra after a mastectomy.

Komen ingrained themselves deeply into the breast cancer world. They are synonymous with the pink ribbon and breast cancer itself. They surely realized that when a loved one is affected, you will do anything if you think it will help stop their pain. And when it just wasn’t meant to be, you will do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. All they needed to do was create a community, make it uplifting and valuable to participants, sell them pink trinkets… and profit.

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Weary of Pink

October 30, 2009 in Health, Life | No comments

SnuggieIf you left your house during last month, you likely saw products emblazoned with pink ribbons grace the shelves of grocery and retail outlets. You turned on the TV and saw NFL teams playing in pink shoes and socks. October has been designated “breast cancer awareness month,” but selling pink merchandise under the guise of awareness amounts to little else than being a subtle way of using sex to sell and to get money from well-meaning consumers.

One day in early October, I walked through the Mall of America and was barraged by pink. It was impossible to escape. Nearly every store was selling something specifically for breast cancer awareness. Later that same day, I stopped at a Walgreens location and discovered that there was even a pink Snuggie.

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