I found my cancer by touching myself. Yup, I said it. It sounds cringy and dirty, I know, and that’s probably why a lot of women don’t do it in the first place. But in this post I’m going to use my experience of finding my own breast cancer in 2018 at the age of 37 to reframe the way that we think about breast self-exams.
How I found my breast cancer
In 2018 I was still nursing my youngest daughter, Bugg. She was two years old, and a fantastic nurser. She was verbal, and yes, she would ask for it. Her word for nursing was “nee,” and she would get her “nee” when she woke in the morning, before a nap, and before bed. In fact, she was nursing with such fervor that even when I took a group of students on study abroad in Africa in late 2017 and was gone for two weeks, I still pumped twice a day to keep my milk supply up so that Bugg could resume nursing when I came back.
Suffice it to say I was spending a lot of time with my breasts. I would look down over them at Bugg’s sweet face. She would often stop nursing to break into a smile when she caught my eye, loosening her latch and exposing her teeth around my nipple. (She only bit me once or twice, but ouch!)
When you nurse or pump, you get very comfortable touching your breasts. I would often squeeze or knead mine to get every last drop of milk out. I would lift them into their bra cups. Sometimes I explored them, trying to get to know the freckles and bumps and lumps of my own anatomy.
That’s how, on many occasions, I noticed a long lump that felt like a tiny surfboard between my sternum and right breast. I was just pressing around, playing, getting to know my body. And there it was, again and again.
You will hear professionals, even doctors, say “trust your intuition.” But as women, we’re taught not to trust ourselves, so it might have been awhile since you checked in with your intuition. I know it had been awhile since I had checked in with mine when I found the tiny, dollhouse-sized surfboard. (The dolls in my childhood dollhouse definitely did not have a surfboard, but hopefully you get the picture. And if the dolls in your dollhouse do have a surfboard, awesome!)
It might sound a little woo woo, but that little dollhouse surfboard-sized bump kept drawing me to it. And as my daughter sucked away, I would run my fingers over that spot. And while the thought of cancer didn’t seriously cross my mind at the time, there was a feeling of, “This is different; this is something; I should say something.” But it still took me a year after I noticed the bump to say something about it.
Please don’t wait a year to say something when you notice anything abnormal in your breasts. When a spot keeps drawing you to it; when you examine a small lump or unusual formation regularly and keep thinking about it, that’s your intuition telling you, pay attention.
Yet, recently, doctors began recommending against self-breast exams
I suspect that at least one of the reasons some doctors no longer recommend self-breast exams is that they are called “exams,” and that healthcare professionals previously recommended them “once a month.” Well, if you’re a busy working single mom like me (or just a human trying to survive in our economy of attention) when you’re in the shower you spend most of your time trying to remember if you already used the conditioner or if you still need to put it in your hair – you’re not thinking, “Has it been a month since my most recent breast exam?”
Touch yourself!
So we won’t call them exams. But for goodness sake, touch yourself! Get to know your breasts. Feel yourself up every once in awhile. Do it so regularly that it’s more than monthly, it’s just you hanging out with your beautiful body.
Good times to get to know your breasts:
- In the shower
- In the bath
- While taking your bra on/off
- While reading
- While making love to a partner (maybe ask that partner to give you a little breast exam, why not??)
- While typing a blog post (I totally didn’t just feel myself up right now…)
- While nursing a child (not so fun fact: you can still get breast cancer while pregnant or nursing)
- Lying in bed waiting to fall asleep
- Just after you wake up
Preferably, try a lot of these times so that you learn your breasts in multiple positions. Don’t feel locked into the “once a month exams in the shower right after your period” that somewhere between 14% and 60% of women are actually doing (depending on the study you read). I did not find my cancer with a self-breast exam, but I did find it by knowing my body. By touching myself. Whatever you do, don’t stop touching yourself.
Consider this: 40% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer feel the lump first themselves. I’m one of them. And I say you’d be crazy to stop touching yourself.
And when you feel something, say something. That’s the Fierce Tit way.
You can find a description of how to do a breast self-exam from the National Breast Cancer Foundation here.