Taking Care of Our Girl's Girls

I was in the 10th grade and had just laid down for the night when I felt a lump in my right breast. I jumped up and ran upstairs to my mother’s bedroom screaming, Ma, Ma, Ma. No modesty in this 15 years old teen girl who was just becoming familiar with the need and pleasure of privacy and being out of the questioning glances or glare of adult eyes. I pulled up my nightgown and revealed my just beginning to form breasts so my mother could feel what I had just felt. I’m sure my eyes were as wide as a half dollar coin, holding and revealing fear, uncertainty, shock, and tears. My heart must have been palpitating like galloping horses after a few laps around the track. But in the midst of all of my emotional chaos, my mother never flinched, and she never wavered. If she was alarmed, or afraid, she didn’t show it. My mother was also a nurse, and I suspect she knew how to force her profession to the front so that her mother’s fear and worry didn’t find its’ way into me to further instigate and agitate my terror. Her love was present, and tender, and sure. She felt it and immediately took matters into her very own capable hands while I was drenched in my scaredness and consumed with thoughts of dread and dead. I may have slept with her that night.

The following week she and I were sitting in the doctor’s office. I don’t remember many details and I probably didn’t understand most of what was being said anyway, other than that I asked that my surgery be on Wednesday rather than Tuesday as that was my lucky day. When we got in the car, she told me to keep my mouth shut the next time and let her handle the business, although she did acquiesce to my crazy, irrational request. That following week on Wednesday morning, I had the lump removed from my breast. Thankfully, it was a non-cancerous cyst. I woke up in a semi-private room with a white woman who was old enough to be my mother and was curious as to why this young Arican American teen girl had breast surgery. She was kind and encouraging to me nevertheless as we laughed and talked about who knows what as I can’t imagine what all we had in common other than breast surgery.

At the time of my surgery, medicine was less sophisticated, and I had internal and external stiches and have lived with the crude scar to attest to it. As the internal stiches had to melt and heal, I itched for one full year and was bent over for at least 6 months. Nevertheless, I was healthy, both blooming breasts intact, and cancer free.

This is my long-winded and hopefully somewhat entertaining but serious way of saying, we need to teach our girls from a very young ages, when and perhaps even before they begin to develop breasts how to do a self-breast exam. I was fortunate to have a mother that was knowledgeable and shared that knowledge with me so that when I felt the lump, I had somewhere to take that information and fear. My mother was very proactive and immediately sought medical attention and did not wait to see if it would go away or develop further. Within 2 weeks, the problem was resolved, and I suspect it was done so quickly because I was so young. Nevertheless, the doctor was diligent and vigilant about tending to my health scare and care.

So ladies-sisters-friends-keepers, please teach our daughters, nieces, cousins, grands, how to do self-breast examinations. I was taught it should be done monthly. They may be too young for a mammogram, but they aren’t too young to develop breast cancer. We must make them aware of the signs, symptoms, and what to do as well as be there to support and walk them through it as warranted and/or wanted. Fear, ignorance, and silence kills.

Be well and be blessed. And let’s take good care of our girls, those attached to us and those who belong to us. Please share this link. https://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-self-exam