Breast Cancer

By W.R. Jones

  Imagine the sinking dread that washes over her as she first touches that lump that should not be there.

    For breast cancer week my wife got people to pledge money for her to walk in circles.  Her time during the 24 hour walkathon was 5:00AM to 7:00AM.  This was on a Sunday morning so I went with her.  Normally we walk 7 to 8 miles every Sunday staring at 7:00 and during the weekdays get up at 4:00AM so this would be a “walk in the park” for us so to speak.  She told me the walk was at a local high school and since we would be getting there while it was still dark we should take a flashlight.

    I told her that was nuts.  At the high school with hundreds of people walking at night they would have to have the stadium lights on and everyone would walk on the track around the football field.  Nope.  We arrived in the dark and there were very few lights at the school.  We were walking in the dark on a field next to the school.  Going round and round in the mud for 2 hours.  As I walked I wondered what type of idiot would devise this scheme for raising money. 

    Why in the world would you require someone to walk in circles to pledge money for some cause?  Pledge the damn money and shut up.  If you won’t part with your dollars until someone does something, have them do something useful.  I pledge X dollars for you to volunteer at the hospital for 2 hours, or clean up graffiti for 2 hours, or paint city hall, or serve food at the homeless shelter, or plant trees, etc.

    I had lunch with a woman here at work not long ago.  She told me her sister has breast cancer and is presently having chemotherapy.  The concern caused by her sister’s diagnosis caused this woman to examine her own breasts whereupon she discovered a lump.  She went to her doctor who verified that lump and found another in her other breast.  He scheduled a mammogram.  When she returned to his office for the results he told her the mammogram was normal, she was fine.  She told him it could not be normal she had lumps.  That was why he sent her there.  “Oh, OK, let’s schedule an ultrasound.”  He scheduled the ultrasound for a month later.  I told her to find another doctor.

    I also told her I should probably have a little looksee at her breasts as a sort of second opinion.  In retrospect I should have kept that comment to myself.  Now I have these three claw marks running from under my left hand jaw across my face to the right hand side hairline. 

    I’m asking for help here.  I need a plausible explanation for these scratches.  It doesn’t have to be super believeable just plausible.  Here’s what I’ve got so far –  I was at a rock concert standing in one of those moss pits when I was picked up and waved across the crowd.  The group holding me were particulary long armed and held me so high that when I went under an unconnected light fixture the three wires; hot, neutral, and ground, scratched my face.  Hell, that’s a pretty good story, I think I’ll go with that.