I was diagnosed 18 months ago and have just had my 1st follow-on mammogram,.My sister-in law just forwarded this to me. Am wondering why I just find it irritating.
Must be getting very po-faced I guess!
…
A serious message generally goes over well if it also involves a good laugh - hope you enjoy this and take the message on board.
Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test and best of all, you can do these simple exercises right in and around your home.
EXERCISE ONE: Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in door. Shut the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn’t effective enough.
EXERCISE TWO:
Visit your garage at 3AM when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.
EXERCISE THREE: Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Smash the bookends together as hard as you can. Set up an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.
YOU ARE NOW TOTALLY PREPARED!
AND, just a thought for all the women out there…MENtal illness, MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdown, MENopause…Ever notice how all of women’s problems start with men?.. And when we have real trouble it’s HISterectomy!!!
Send this to all women to have a laugh AND, don’t forget to have a mammogram!!!
A Friend Is Like A Good Bra… Hard to Find, Supportive,Comfortable, Always Lifts You Up,Never Lets You Down or Leaves You Hanging …and Is Always Close To Your Heart!!!
You’re not the only one; I’ve been sent this as well.
I DO find it irritating, yet it’s true as well. Mammograms can be very painful indeed.
I suppose its heart is in the right place, but the highly unpleasant associations we on here have with this procedure mean that I for one don’t find it funny, either.
(And I don’t think I’m losing my sense of humour, altho’ it gets severely strained at times…:))
actually this would pee me off totally - I can see that the point is to encourage going for a mammo, but I think it isn’t very funny…also I hate,hate ,hate the anti-men rants -I guess I’m lucky to know really nice,good men so never feel that amount of antipathy towards them…
What an insensitive email! A couple of months post op a group of friends at a group I go to were laughing at something. When I came up they gave me a piece of paper and there was a poem on it (in the style of Pam Ayres) called “I wish I had looked after my t*ts”! Sharp intake of breath from me. Then it dawned on me that it hadn’t occurred to them that it was tactless. Also, instead of thinking of me as Maude who has had a mastectomy I was just Maude to them which is how I want it to be.
Does your sister-in-law know you were upset by the email? I would have been upset by it too and found it very inappropriate. Also, can you imagine how you would feel if you had never had a mammogram - it would put you off going.
Hi
NoI don’t think you have lost your sense of humour. I have seen this article years ago before I had BC and didn’t find it funny then. I like the bit at the end about a friend though. This is a very good definition. It would go well on another thread on the forum about how we feel after treatment and other people’s reaction towards us. Are we infectious like Swine Flu? Do people think they will catch cancer from us? Or are we radioactive after Rads and may burn them? Sorry for the rant which is a bit off the point of the thread but this is the joy of the forum.
Love to everyone
Margaret
My sister works abroad with loads of Americans and gets loads of viral emails about that get circulated in the States as mammo reminders. A year after I was diagnosed she sent me a load of cartoons featuring women in offices with squashed flat breasts and male bosses saying things like “I know what you’ve been for”. I wasn’t getting on with her during my treatment as she went into total denial and was behaving as if nothing was going on at my end; she was also coming over to see friends but giving me a wide berth every time. When I got those cartoons I went completely apesh*t and emailed to say BC patients don’t need to be reminded to go for mammos.
She still sends those horrible viral emails with candles and all sorts of sickly verses for women who have died. Our brother’s partner was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and I had to email her to tell her not to send anything like this. The more I tell her it can be offensive, the more she just doesn’t get it and it drives me nuts.
hello
I completely agree with chipper - its not even funny! as for man-bashing, its just a bit of a bore - I would be well p*ssed off to see such crass generalisations about women…
cherub, I have a sister like yours - she even has a daughter just like her who has recently really upset my daughter with her comments about me and bc. I am seeing them this weekend and I feel like taking them to one side and spelling things out, but won’t bother because it would be a waste of time. Luckily she is one out of 7 siblings and the other 6 are wonderful.
I do find it strange that some people have such difficulty in dealing with bc, and I feel sorry for them in a way because not many people go through life without coming up against cancer in some way, its got to be difficult to avoid if they can’t cope with it.
xx monica
Dear All, It’s not about loosing a sense of humour, that e-mail is in very bad taste and I find it offensive. Also the crap about a serious message goes over well if it also involves a good laugh is really appalling. I would say this person has a serious problem!!!
Leadie
I hate stuff like this as well. How is that supposed to encourage anyone to go for a mammo? Why can’t things be a bit more straightforward, there’s no need to make going for a mammo funny. Sigh.
Dear all
I too received the very same email, not long after dx by mammo whilst waiting to go in for my op.
I felt stung and deleted it immediately as it is in poor taste and not what I wanted to read at that time Admittedly the person who sent it did not know I had been diagnosed and when she heard on the grapevine she was mortified. She sent me a SORRY SORRY email and couldn’t apologise enough for sending it.
Maybe we are understandably over sensitive due to all that we have had to endure. Before bc I probably wouldn’t have given it much thought. I for one welcome mammograms they could have turned out to be a life saver for me.
there’s a couple of people who constantly send me round robins and I usually delete them without looking at them. I am thinking of adding these people to my list of banned email addresses
I’m with Adele1. These virals pop up all the time from all over, they’re generally well meant and if I’m offended it’s usually because of the sickly “chain letter” sentiment which demands you deliver this drivel to 52 people within five minutes.
Had a mammo last week, btw, first one after mammoplasty both sides following cancer diagnosis in Jan 2008. And did grin wryly at the content of the viral, because I myself described the mammo process to friends as being “squeezed between two fridge doors”.
So I’m not going to condemn something I’ve laughed at myself. And while I’m laughing at it, I’m also actively encouraging friends and others to take up that mammo invite. A note on the men-bashing:
“AND, just a thought for all the women out there…MENtal illness, MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdown, MENopause…Ever notice how all of women’s problems start with men?.. And when we have real trouble it’s HISterectomy!!!”
Actually, “hysteria” comes from the same Latin root as “hysterectomy”. Which I’ve just had, and also some other major organs removed.
If you don’t like a viral (happens all the time) delete and/or block. Sorted. Let’s not get hysterical!
id probably have a giggle but send an email back saying cheers for that mate! I hate the ones that say forward it on to so many people for good luck, i used to but then got BC.
I detest these “pass it on to ten people” kind of chain mail messages and seldome find them funny. Infact they really irritate me now. I used to think they were quite good but am so fed up with them. So if I think it is one of these emails I generally just delete them. But what I would dearly love would be if these " friends" would just send me a 2 line message to tell me how they are or ask me how I am. It is so easy just to press a button and “forward” something they have been sent. But it would be so much better if they just took time to write a line or two. Rant over. Love Val ( Scottishlass)
yes, you are right, i have friends that do that too, some of the jokes are funny, but i must admit i no longer forward them on.
off to bed now, goodnight.
take care
anna
I hate those that tell you you’ll have bad luck or some awful thing will happen if you don’t pass them on - sometimes I get sent ones with St Teresa which stirs things in my Catholic girlhood - I do delete them and feel very pissed off with whoever has sent them. The mammogram one is just way off the mark in that it isn’t remotely funny.
I’m with Adele and Lanterna (I remember you posting when I was first diagnosed July 2008 How are you?)I would just laugh.
But I work with the NHS so we often have a warped sense of humour.
Remember many many women have mammos not just those with cancer so it not getting at us.I am sure whoever sent it ,meant it to make you laugh.
It didn’t ,but I am sure it was sent with good intentions.
I too hate the sickly sweet chain mails …arrghhh!