Reflections on My First Mammogram
Not long after my third anniversary on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), I had my first mammogram. In addition to describing the experience itself, I hope I can give you a sense of the feelings it stirred within me.
In my teen years, as I watched the girls in my classes begin to sprout breasts, I was filled with longing and envy. Why isn’t that me, I kept asking myself; why isn’t it me? But time and circumstance forced me to put that dream aside for decades, until it became possible for me to transition three years ago at the age of fifty-eight.
The nurse practitioner managing my HRT told me I should begin regular mammograms three years after starting HRT. For a long time, I despaired of ever having enough breast tissue that it would be worthwhile to scan, until I reached the maximum dosage of Progesterone last year. That was the moment the switch flipped.
I had been wearing breast forms daily since I went public as myself. I noticed as the summer wore on they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, one afternoon at work, I went into the restroom and shed them. Since then, I’ve gone through three bra sizes and have landed somewhere between a B and C cup.
When I reminded my NP that the time for the exam had come she booked me for the procedure at my local hospital. I was escorted to a room where rhinestone-encrusted bras hung from the walls, created during a breast cancer awareness campaign a few years ago. The mammography unit stood tall and slightly ominously in the center of the room.
A kind technician, about my age, handed me a raspberry-colored gown and walked me through the steps of the procedure. I was now in one more exclusively female space I never thought I would be able to enter.
The procedure itself? Awkward (in getting myself positioned so the tech could capture all the angles she needed) and just a little painful (the feeling of having my boobs smashed was akin to a good hard pinch), but I walked out of the room with a sense of relief and wonder.
I wanted this done first and foremost to make sure I was free of one of the most treatable cancers (when caught early). That was the most important reason I was there by far. But I also thought about breasts as the object of sexual desire, and even more so as the symbol of woman’s nature as life-giver and nurturer.
When the CD of the scans and the doctor’s report arrived a few days later, I was relieved to know that no abnormalities had been found in my virgin breast tissues. I’ll be back next year, as requested. I don’t think it will carry nearly the import this first one did, the mammogram I’ll never forget.
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Category: Transgender Body & Soul
About the Author (Author Profile)
Claire Hall was born and grew up in a large city on the left coast and has spent most of her adult years in a beautiful small coastal community where she's now an elected official in local government after spending many years as a newspaper and radio reporter. In her space time she loves reading, writing fiction (her first novel was published by a regional press a couple of years ago), watching classic Hollywood movies, and walking.Subscribe
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