Next Step

During all of our years together, my husband and I have avoided HMOs. I grew up in the Kaiser healthcare system, which soured me on any HMO. While still in our vibrant thirties, we latched onto good health insurance and have never let go, despite the shocking deductibles and the high premiums. We vaguely said that one day one of us might need the best care, and we wanted the freedom to seek it out. Unfortunately that day arrived.

After a little Internet research, I knew I wanted an opinion from a hospital that regularly dealt with what I was facing. I e-mailed a friend who worked at USC for a referral. She responded quickly, and within 48 hours of my diagnosis, I was on the calendar of a leading expert at USC's Norris Cancer Center. The only glitch was that I had to wait a couple of weeks for my appointment. The doctor was out of the country.

In the meantime, I went to see the oncologist/surgeon who was in the same building as my OB-GYN. He was a grey-haired Chinese man, who had a quiet manner and sizeable accent. He studied my mammograms and then strongly advised me to get an MRI in both breasts. This was not because the mammograms suggested a serious condition. It was because the mammograms suggested nothing.

Enter the dense breast issue. Because of my particularly solid anatomy, my tissues appear white on an x-ray. But in an unforturnate bit of trickery, cancerous masses also appear white. Essentially, everyone in my mammogram is wearing the same color -- heathy tissue and bad tissue alike. This is a case where you can't tell the good cells from the sluts.

Maybe I'm overly focused on this, but couldn't some medical genius fix this problem, and convince one group of cells to wear a different color to the annual mammogram. I'm not the only person in this situation, after all. Lots of women, especially younger ones, have dense breasts.

Anyway, I agreed with the Chinese doctor that an MRI was an excellent idea. I wanted data soon, and I had to wait a little over two weeks before I could get into USC. Subjecting myself to an MRI seemed, oddly, like a good use of time.