A Visit to the Breast Center

Like Christmas, the hoopla for Breast Cancer Awareness Month (which actually isn't until October) comes earlier each year. As we gear up for another season of pink t-shirts, teary-eyed testimonials on the news, endless "Race for the Cure" promotionals, and at least one Denver office building that puts a giant pink ribbon on its side, I would like to add some awareness of my own.

Though the rate is only 1 in 1000 (American Cancer Society ), men fall victim to breast cancer too. Survival is thought to be lower for us because of ignorance about the warning signs. Men also have less tissue in their breasts than women, usually, so once cancer spreads, it doesn't have far to go before reaching other parts of the body.

Naturally I was concerned when I noticed something growing in the right side of my chest. I asked my doctor to take a look during my bi-annual physical and he sent me to the Rose Hospital Breast Center for tests.

It just happened to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month (2007). The whole city was festooned in pink ribbons. Television and radio trumpeted the annual fundraising "Race" and reminded us constantly that this could affect our wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters. It felt like the there was yet another major holiday crowding the fall schedule.

I'm not hung up on my masculinity. But it was a challenge to walk into the Breast Center. Most people in the waiting room sat in pairs, two women or a woman and a man (presumably a husband). Every single one of them looked scared to death. As I reached for a magazine and sat down alone, I could feel their eyes upon me. "What is that guy doing? Where is his wife?"

Even I, a cynical consumer of medical services, was impressed by the compassion and reassurance of the place. The receptionist greeted regulars by name. The waiting area was comfortable and roomy enough to allow for some privacy as patients processed the implications of their predicament. A television unobtrusively played in one corner, something about a world series, distracting the husbands and minimizing the need to talk.

After a few long minutes, I was called to the more clinical back rooms. Shown into a cubicle, I was asked to take off my shirt and put on a gown. I waited several more minutes behind the ubiquitous hospital cloth partition before the technician came to get me.

All business, she led me to the big machine. Having never seen one, I nevertheless knew it was the device where women have their breasts squished in search of unusual growths. Seriously, I thought, you mean I'm supposed to put myself between those two flat, metal plates?

As I stepped up close and leaned in to have the delicate tissue of my chest region uncomfortably pressed into the cold mammogram apparatus, I made a lame comment about the challenge of having to squish a man between the metal surfaces.

"Oh," she remarked, "we get a lot of women in here who are smaller than you."

I didn't say a word for the rest of the exam.

Long story short (too late I know), I did have a growth. It required a couple of return visits and some painful biopsies which consisted of long needles being plunged deep into my apparently fleshy man-breast.

Everything finally turned out negative, much to my enormous relief. But every Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which started in mid-August this year, I feel just a little more aware than the average guy.

Which reminds me, I'd better start getting ready for HIV/AIDS Awareness Month. December will be here before you know it.