I Am More

Today I went in for my semi-annual mammogram. Or is it bi-annual? I can never remember. Sometimes my brain is like my washing machine that is constantly losing one sock in a pair. I know I've looked up the semi-annual/bi-annual thing before but it still alludes me. Let's just say I go in for a mammogram twice a year.

Everything was normal. (Thank God.) Back again in six months.

I wrote the following poem after the U.S. Preventative Task Force came out with the recommendation that women do not need routine mammograms until they are age fifty or older. Since I had no family history when I was diagnosed from a mammogram at age forty-eight, I don't have to tell you how strongly I disagree with that conclusion.

This poem recently appeared in the Albert Lea Tribune, thanks to my mom who still lives in my hometown in Minnesota. Later this month it will be given out on a bookmark at a fundraiser for the Desert Cancer Foundation.

I Am More

I am more

than one in eight women.

I am more

than twenty percent

of diagnosed females

under the age of fifty.

I am more

than one hundred ninety-two thousand,

three hundred seventy

new cases this year.

I am more

than a survivor

in an enormous sea

of two and a half million survivors.

I am more

than a statistic.

I am

your sister

your mother

your wife

your daughter

your friend.

I am

the reason

to get a mammogram.

I am

living proof.