For every woman who's made a half-hearted effort to check her breasts for lumps and given up.

I had my first mammogram 6 weeks ago.

Breast cancer isn’t something I’ve ever been particularly worried about, to be honest. There’s no history in my family and I’m not really the worrying type.

I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve examined my own breasts for lumps or changes. I never felt like I was getting anywhere with a self-exam. I was feeling so many things; I just sort of gave up.

I took a punt on my puppies.  I decided the odds of my developing breast cancer before I was old enough to start having mammograms was slim. I judged the odds slim enough to leave even thinking about it until then.

Also, I’m very busy.

I have jobs and kids and I’m rarely looking for things to do.  I probably cancel half the appointments I make and don’t even get around to cancelling most of the other half.  I shudder to think how many times my name’s been yodelled into a waiting room, only to sink into the carpet with the realization that I’m a no-show, again, and that’s when I’ve actually been sick or in pain.  Making an appointment when I didn’t feel anything wrong? Fuggedaboudit!

I do have a little time for Facebook.  Sometimes I feel like it’s my only window to the outside world and watching Samuel Johnson unicycle around Australia for the love of his sister Connie has become somewhat of a hobby of mine.  You probably know that Sam’s project is called “Love Your Sister” and it’s happening because Connie is dying of breast cancer.

Their story is, as they say, all the feels.

I sat aimlessly at my desk about 7 weeks ago.  I was on radio holidays and uncharacteristically otherwise unburdened.  My kids were even at daycare, so as I watched Sam’s latest video I decided to have a mammogram.  I told myself I was making the call in honor of Sam and Connie, and a few days later, the 10 minute test was done.

I was chuffed with myself all afternoon for having behaved like a fully functioning grown up, but had forgotten all about it by the time I received a letter from Breast Screen Victoria last Wednesday.

I was actually at my desk again, chatting on the phone to a work colleague as I opened and read the letter. Gradually it dawned on me as her voice seemed to fade into the distance that it wasn’t the “as you were, nothing to see here,” letter is assumed it was.

It was actually notification of an appointment at 9.30 the following morning. It was explained to me later that they don’t like to give you too much notice because you’ll only worry, and as gentle as the letter attempted to be, I can see how re-reading it for weeks could be stressful.

“Further information is needed,” it said. “We need further clarification. We suggest you set aside half a day because you may need further x-rays, ultrasound or physical examination,” it went on.

Of course, I consulted Dr Google immediately. I read that it was very common for first time mammogram-ees to be called back in.  I referred back to that fact many times over the next 24 hours, as I went quietly mad having decided not to tell anyone in my family about the letter.  Unlike me, my husband suspects his every discomfort is cancer and he would’ve folded like my mother on washing day.  I didn’t tell her either for much the same reason.

I tried to toss and turn quietly all night, and attended my appointment alone, taking my place in the waiting room, bra-less in a blue gown with the other 30 or so recipients of those letters. One by one we were called in for another mammogram.

Nat King Cole was playing in the waiting room. It was too much. I don’t know about the others, but everything had seemed just a bit too much since I’d opened that letter.

Music, ads on TV, hot smooches from a big dumb dog, everything took on extra significance.  As hard as I tried to stay cool and focus on the stats, I unexpectedly teared up when collecting my kids from daycare. I even punched out a reflexive prayer in the car on the way home, “please don’t let them be kids whose mum dies!”

I thought about my kids, and Connie’s kids, each time I returned to the hospital waiting room.  In and out of smaller rooms I wandered, for this test and that test, but every time I was returned to the waiting room, as the shadow on my original mammogram stubbornly refused identification.

Every time I returned there were less women there.  I guess their shadows were more cooperative and they’d been allowed to leave.  In the end there was me and two other ladies, hilarious old things who insisted upon sitting outside in the 44 degree heat and smoking.

The three of us knew we’d made it to the end of the line – Biopsy City, population – us.   This is where they take a bit of whatever’s making that shadow out, to have a proper look at it in a lab.

They use a big needle that sort of fires loudly inside your breast when it’s in the right place, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.  It takes literally seconds and, as I said to the smoking ladies outside, who grilled me afterwards in the grilling sun, “it’s no worse than plucking your eyebrows.”

I always compare painful procedures to hair removal methods when talking to women.  It’s a universal pain scale, and they were very relived by the comparison. I saw the same ladies on Monday, when we all had to go back for our results.  “My biopsy hurt like bloody hell!” one of them told me.  The other concurred.

“Sorry,” I said wincing.  I felt terrible about it, but they chuckled their phlegmy, coughy smokers chuckles and pulled their tops down to show me their bruises.

Two of us received good news that day, and one of them did not.  More tests, the thing has to come out, whatever it is, and on it goes for that lovely lady long after I left the waiting room and made my way through the hospital maze to my car.

Again I thought of Connie, only 35 now and with a life expectancy of 6 to 12 months.  I thought about all the women who’ve had to share that bad news with their families, and I had a really big, ugly cry right there in the carpark.

Let’s all make an effort shall we, to get on top of those little jobs like Mammograms, pap smears and prostate checks. Let’s treat them with the same urgency we afford excursion permission slips and bin night. We try so hard to stay on top of those things because we fear the chaos and disruption of letting them go.  I think you know where I’m going with this…

Have you been putting off your check-ups? Has Samuel Johnson’s “Love Your Sister” campaign inspired you to take better care of your health?