A young girl walked into my office this morning. She looked calm and collected, wearing a bright yellow cotton designer top and dark blue denim jeans. I smiled and welcomed her and she smiled back, taking a seat opposite me. I wondered what her problem would be.
That’s the funny thing about being a Doctor. Most times people come to you not because they remembered it was your birthday or wedding anniversary, not because they got a new job and wanted to share the good news with you, not even for a few minutes of juicy gossip. They tend to only come knocking at your door when they have a serious problem. So no matter how gorgeous or handsome or sophisticated or composed they look, you know they are either worried sick or stricken with fear on the inside. In this case, the lady in question was concerned about a swelling on her left breast.
That’s another funny thing about doctors. Most guys would gawk at the idea of lady walking up to you and pleading to show you a highly censored part of her anatomy. Not us doctors. We’ve been so brainwashed in school, having been through 6 to 8 years (extension time thanks to various university strikes) of hellish and tortuous training that we forget about the simple joys of life like appreciating a mammary gland in all of its glory. Instead we automatically focus on the disease entity at hand. Is the lump painful? Is it increasing in size? What part of the breast is the lump located? Any nipple discharge or bleeding? Our brains click away in a bid to unravel a fresh mystery.
This lovely young lady gave me a pathetic story of how she had unwittingly put her health in jeopardy. She had noticed a lump on her left breast about 3months ago and, despite being educated, despite all the noise being made on the mass media about breast cancer, she had ignored it. The lump continued to increase in size until she worriedly showed it to her grandmother who suggested massaging with hot water. This only made the swelling worse and after a week of this treatment she decided to visit the local chemist who “mixed” some drugs for her.
By the time she arrived at my office the cancer had spread to her right breast as well. I examined her, sat her down and sighed inwardly, preparing myself to deliver the bad news. As I started talking, the calm mask on her face began to melt away, revealing the fear that had hitherto been lurking underneath. I tried to reassure her, to tell her that there was treatment, it wasn’t so bad, other people had beaten the illness and survived… but honestly I didn’t know whether to be sorry for her or to be angry at her. She was a graduate for Pete’s sake! She should have known better! Then again perhaps if our society had spent as much resources and finances in aggressively educating the public of this silent killer as they did in paying football coaches for instance, maybe this beautiful young lady wouldn’t be fighting for her life right now.
