Breast cancer doesn’t only happen to women.
UPDATED: 2 May 2017: “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously – When my wife was struck by mysterious, debilitating symptoms, our trip to the ER revealed the sexism inherent in emergency treatment”
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15 March 2015 – I came across this article in Huffington Post. It postulates that sometimes, women’s medical complaints are fobbed off by medical professionals as hysterics or hypochondria.
A little background first:
I’ve been very involved with hospitals as a patient since I was born, because I was a 28-week preemie. I weighed 1 kilogram (2.2lbs) when I was born, in the backseat of my parents’ car, as my dad raced at 80 miles an hour (my mom’s description) to get to the hospital. Things after that happened very quickly, and I was whisked off to the NICU. 33 years later, I’m still alive and kicking.
Premature babies are at risk for many different conditions because sometimes their deliveries (like mine) can be rushed, resulting in a decreased level of oxygen (known as hypoxia) getting to the brain. This can cause bleeding in the brain, and brain damage. Not every preemie turns out the same: some are not affected at all, whilst others have a plethora of chronic medical conditions that affect them for the rest of their lives.
I have cerebral palsy that affects all four of my limbs. It’s also sometimes referred to as “spastic quadriplegia” because of the spasticity of my muscles, although I have much more control of my upper body than my legs. I was born with obstructive hydrocephalus, which is most commonly caused by bleeding in the brain (see above) leading to brain damage. When I was 5 months old, a cerebral shunt was inserted surgically to drain the excess fluid around my brain to my abdomen. Periodically, some patients need to have the shunt replaced or fixed when the child needs more tubing in the abdomen, or the shunt system becomes blocked (which can also happen to adults). These are relatively simple neurosurgical procedures.
Back to that article…
Men’s chronic pain or outright acute pain can go ignore because they are expected to “man up”, and hide or ignore the pain. Male breast cancer is also more likely to kill because men are not socialized (you know, all the bright pink stuff like ribbons, t-shirts and awareness programs) to do regular self-checks every month.
Moral: If you are a guy with a girl, do your checks with your lady friend when she checks her breasts and lymph nodes. If you are a guy with a guy, make a specific date each month to self-check breasts, testicles and penis (first of the month works fine). If you feel or see **anything** out of the ordinary (lumps, soreness, inflammation, irregularity from the last month’s check), see your doctor. It will likely be nothing to worry about, but the point is that you do check.
If you do not know how to do a self-check, look it up. Don’t know where the lymph nodes are or how to check them? Look it up.
Why do I feel so strongly about this? My maternal grandmother died of untreated postmenopausal metastatic breast cancer in 1999. She had known about it for ten years (!!!!!) beforehand but had refused to get looked at because that wasn’t done to a lady of her time, letting a strange doctor grope your boobs. We only learned of it after the cancer had spread so far that tumors were squeezing her throat, making eating and breathing difficult.
A couple years after she died, I found a mass in one of my breasts whilst I was taking a shower. Naturally, since my grandma had died of this, I was terrified. It turned out to be a benign solid tumor (fibroadenoma), after scans and biopsies ruled out malignancy.
Two years or so after the first mass had been found, Nathan found another abnormality in my right breast. I hadn’t noticed it in my regular checks because it doesn’t feel like a round lump. (*grope, grope…* “Hey, this part feels different.”) So, off we went to the rapid diagnosis breast clinic, where they did another biopsy and ultrasound of the left fibroadenoma, as well as a thorough exam of the right breast. It shows all the earmarks of a benign mass, though it’s more of an area of differently-feeling tissue than the normal surrounding tissue.
What are the earmarks (characteristics) of a benign breast mass in either men OR women?
-regular shape (usually oval or round)
-mobility (ie, if you palpate it with your fingers, it doesn’t feel stuck to the rest of the surrounding tissue)
-relatively painless, although palpation can sometimes be painful, like a mammogram or breast ultrasound because the ultrasound probe, and the mammogram squeezer have to compress the breast tissue around the solid mass to get a decent picture. Because I was a relatively young patient with a suspected mass, I learned that ultrasounds provide fewer false positive results because young breast tissue is different than older breast tissue.
-a word about lymph nodes: Usually, they are not sore if the primary mass is benign. Lymph nodes can swell and become sore for a variety of reasons, the most common and benign of which is influenza or the common cold. During a self-check, remember to check the nodes as well as the breasts.
Bret Miller is a 24-year old man battling breast cancer. You can read more about him by clicking this picture.
We’ve named my 2 masses Ethel Rosenberg (left), and Felicia (right). It makes it easier to refer to them. and it makes them less scary.
I check both every month. So should you. Even if you don’t like the idea that men have breasts. They do. It’s just that male breasts tend have less overall tissue in them. That’s why male breast cancer is rarer – because there is less Lebensraum (“living space” – Yes, I do mean Hitler’s philosophy, because cancer is just as insidious and terrible as Nazism, as has similarly destructive effects on whatever it comes into contact with) for the cancer to attach to and put up curtains. By the time a man is able to feel a mass in his breast or lymph nodes, it’s often too late.
Learn how to do a self-check here (male AND female). Note: Doing the self-exam when you’re lathered up with soap can make things easier.
Finally, to answer the question posed by the title: Yes, gender bias in medicine is killing people. But. in my view, it’s not just women who are the victims of this bias. It’s also a patient’s responsibility to keep an eye on themselves, and to fight, if necessary, for equal priority and care. Because, when you have a chronic illness, or suspect something serious might be wrong with you, YOU are your own best advocate, and have the potential to be an expert about your own body.
