More Thoughts on Mammograms Before IVF

Can you tell I have a lot of feelings about this?   (See Thoughts, Part I).   I keep reading more and more about mammograms before IVF, and it looks like the gold standard CCRM IVF clinic in Colorado requires everyone to get a mammogram before IVF, which is the only reason Guiliana Rancic got one at all.  That mammogram saved her life at 36 as it caught early stage breast cancer.  I'm all for this.  What a great idea.  I know I would have put mine off if I didn't have to do it for IVF.

And then there's crap like this from the Boston Globe.  After Guiliana's press blitz, the always qualified Staff Writer plays doctor and wonders, "Do All Women Need Mammograms Before IVF?"  Staff Writer goes over the standard suspects.  You're young, you don't have family history, you probably don't have breast cancer.  Yea, just like I'll have no problem having a baby, like everyone else, right?  And it's not like I would be pumping my body full of hormones that could literally fuel an easily detected, deadly cancer, right?  And chemo when pregnant is no biggie, right?  Thanks, doc!

And then the end.  "I'm worried, though, that women may be swayed by Rancic's powerful story than the faceless emotionless science."  Worried?  WORRIED?

Worried about what?  Worried you might think about getting a mammogram after hearing that amazing story that literally saved a woman's life?  Worried you might waste half an hour of your day?  Worried that you might have one more bureaucratic form out of a thousand.  Worried that you might tack on $100 to a bill in the tens of thousands?  Worried you might be embarrassed at someone seeing your boobs on the way to your daily trips to the dildo cam?  Worried you might stub your fucking toe on the elevator?  Who in the history of the universe has ever been worried that you might NOT have cancer???

I'd be a hell of a lot more "worried" about pumping estrogen into the unknowns in my body when my mother was on estrogen blockers for decades to block her invasive, estrogen-fueled breast cancer that almost took her life at 37.  That's where worry comes from.  Just get a mammogram.  Make sure you don't have cancer before you start IVF.  There's no downside.  Unless you stub your toe.