#breast exam

to cleanse the palate from that last nasty ask, i want to tell you about a good visit i had to the doctor:

i have never had a physical in my adult life. i had decent pediatric care as a kid (they knocked my knee with a little rubber mallet), but after age 15, i have never seen a doctor for a visit that took longer than 20 minutes. 

the doctor’s appointments I used to have at Big Gay Health, Inc. were, like…. fine? I guess? As I said before, they generally consisted of reviewing my numbers (viral load and CD4) to see if I was taking my HIV meds. If there was a bounce in my viral load, they would lecture me about med adherence (my particular regimen must be taken every day, at the same time every day, with food). 

(The other reason for these visits is frankly, kind of a policing one. If you are being prescribed meds but your bloodwork shows that you are not responding to them – your CD4 count stays the same, and your viral load does not decrease – it is assumed that you are selling your meds, probably to undocumented people, and there is the possibility that you will get in big trouble.)

ANYWAY, this was my first full physical in many years. Like, the nurse telling me to strip down to a little paper gown and everything. Speaking as a trans woman, this is normally something that would freak me the fuck out, but my nurse and doctor had such good bedside manner and gave me plenty of time and privacy to change that it felt like nbd. 

And can I tell you, they checked EVERYTHING out? The whole thing took an hour and a half, and they checked out everything they possibly could, both in person and via the results of my bloodwork. Eyes, ears, nose, thoat, abdomen, and even — oh Lord my Lord! GENITALS, BREASTS, and PROSTATE.

Again, as someone  who is often very private about my body, particularly in medical contexts and particularly around strangers and particularly around male authority figure medical strangers, this normally would have sent me into a panic attack. But the doctor was just so kind, so sweet, so funny and made the whole thing seem so normal that I was totally okay with it. 

(I also got an anal pap while I as there. I have mixed feelings and general unresolved questions about the effectiveness/alarmist/overall public health value of the anal pap, but that’s a post for another time.)

The last thing I want to say about this nice visit to the doctor was this: learning to do a breast exam felt like a big fucking deal. He asked me if I do self-breast exams every month, and I like, uhhh, I have seen like pamphlets about how to do it, but I honestly don’t even know what I’m feeling for. Which is true! I have dated men all my life, thus I have not gone around feeling a lot of titties, so I don’t even know what “normal” breast tissue is supposed to feel like. 

(Especially because, you know how when trans girls’ breasts are developing, it can feel kind of hard and fibrous right under the nipple? I’m all like, is that that “normal”? Who fucking knows?)

Anyway, what he told me was that what you’re looking for is any breast tissue that feels different from the rest of the breast tissue. Like anything fibrous or lumpy or w/e. Idk, if you can find a compassionate medical provider, please please do yourself a favor and have him or her show you how to do this, it is so easy and knowing that you’re doing it correctly is (or at least, has been for me) a major weight off my mind. 

tl;dr: went to the Dr., got poked and prodded a lot, feel good about it