Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120004
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We know the statistics - that one in nine of us will develop the disease sometime in our lives, that a woman in the U.S. dies of breast cancer every 12 minutes.
We also know that the best - and earliest - way to spot a lump is by doing monthly breast self-exams.
Despite our knowledge, when the doctor asks if we practice this monthly routine, many of us are lying when we nod our heads yes.
I've been taking an informal poll of some of my women friends for a few months now. When I ask them if they do regular breast self-exams, their first reaction is always a face-crinkling cringe. Two out of nine say they do the exam monthly, and a third says she does it ``about every other month or so.''
The other six had a hard time even talking about it. One e-mailed me this note: ``It's the great untold story - we're all afraid of feeling a bone or cartilage and freaking out.
``My doc examined me last week and I'm totally healthy, so I've been doing it myself, figuring maybe I can learn how these things feel down deep while I KNOW there's nothing there.''
Fear. It's the same reason we tune out the stewardess when she explains the emergency aircraft-evacuation procedures.
We don't want to hear it. We don't even want to consider the worst.
If we think about it - truly ponder the imponderable - we might just freak out.
We are scared. To death and about death.
|n n| Sara Lazarus knows our tendency is to fear the very thing that could save us. An educator for the Cancer Center of Southwest Virginia, she has been tempted to pull women out of the line at Kroger or at the dry cleaners - anywhere at all - and give them a good talking-to.
She'll lecture in the workplace, in the neighborhood, at a church-club meeting, any spot where she can manage to gather 12 or so women to talk. Her lectures are free and are sponsored by Carilion Health System.
She's got the resources, she's got the supplies.
Now, all she needs is more women in the audience.
``I call groups all the time and say, `I want to teach women how to do this breast self-exam.' And you should hear the excuses'' for declining her talk.
``I had one Presbyterian woman tell me, `Well, we don't practice that.' ... The whole thing, it's a fight against the mindset of women.''
To psych up Lazarus and her other speakers for the battle, a Carilion psychiatrist advised them to focus on the advantages of early detection - not the disadvantages of late detection. Don't use scare tactics, he said. Don't dwell on the risks.
As an incentive for women over 40 to get mammograms, Lazarus garnered certificates from Elizabeth Arden for a $40 gift set - redeemable only when the mammogram is completed.
And Lazarus figured if she was going to get an audience at all, she should at least call her program by a name that women could repeat out loud. Thus, the Breast Cancer Awareness Program was renamed the Breast Health Awareness Program.
``Women can't even say breast cancer without choking on it,'' she says.
In her talks, she pulls out four pink rubbery balls. The smallest is about half the size of a pea. The largest is the size of a golf ball.
The half-pea represents cancer at its early stage, detectable by a mammogram. The golf ball is the size the half-pea has grown to on the day that you happen to notice it, standing there in the shower.
Two years is the time it takes to get that big.
Lazarus holds up the half-pea next to the golf ball and says, ``Which do you think will save your life and your breast?''
Then she really gives you the willies. She pulls out her silicone breast model - chock full of lumps, bumps and rubbery bands of tissue - and gets ready to pass it around.
You, meanwhile, have squinted up your eyes and bunched up your mouth. Your body is saying ``GROSS!'' Your mind is suggesting that you bolt for the door.
Lazarus reads your thoughts. ``I'm scared to death of it, too, but I need to be in charge.''
Either you can learn what a lump feels like today, she says, by practicing on the model.
Or you can wait till you might accidentally feel it one day in the shower, when it's so big that it may be. . . . She never use the words, ``too late.''
Instead, she says, ``The choice is yours,'' and passes the fake cancer-ridden breast around.
You are shamed into feeling it.
You recognize right now that detecting that small lump may save your life.
But that big lump in your throat - called fear - can kill you.
For more information, or to schedule a free session on breast self-exam and mammography, call Carilion's Cancer Program Development Office at 981-7559.
Beth Macy's column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. She can be reached at 981-3435.
by CNB