Dear Carol & Jan, I also recently had a mammogram. I scheduled it at the hospital I work at. For that, I am very thankful. At our hospital, they give you your results within two hours. I had a radiologist and a digitalized computer reading on the spot. The radiologist wanted to speak with me. He told me that I had new calcifications that looked suspicious. He even paged the surgeon and walked me down to his office. The surgeon looked at my films and they set me up for a mammotome biopsy for later in the week. I had the biopsy in mammography. You lie on a table where there is a hole through which your breast hangs down. They numb your breast with anesthetic and use a hollow needle. They take several samples and you can hear the whirring of the knife as it goes through. (I also felt it--OUCH!) Then, they take more pictures--another mammogram when they're all done. My breast was sore and bruised. I also had a hematoma that was pretty painful to the touch. Well, to make a long story short, they found a small cancerous lesion--3 millimeters! I then was set up for a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy. That was eight days ago. Thankfully, there were no cancer cells in the tissue they removed and nothing in the lymph nodes they removed. The pathology report had that they had probably removed everything with the biopsy. The surgeon said I had a great report--the cells were both estrogen and progesterone positive! I will probably only need to follow up with radiation. I have an appointment with the oncologist next week. To relate this all to breastfeeding, it would seem that I should have the odds in my favor. I had my first two babies before the age of 23. With four children, I have 13 years of breastfeeding, yet my genes prevailed and I developed breast cancer. Thankfully, because of my mother having had breast cancer, I vowed I would make sure I took care of myself and have regular mammograms. I never took for granted that breastfeeding would protect me, (even though I had hoped it would.) Please don't put off having a mammogram. I know that having mine saved my life! Best to all, Connie Chiavario, IBCLC, RLC Rush Copley Medical Center Aurora, IL *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html