aa-OO-gah! aa-OO-gah!

We have such a great time in my support group. I was about to go for my prosthesis fitting, and I mentioned all the great things about having a "falsie." I could get the practical money-belt/coin-purse model, for instance, or the one, that when you squeeze it, goes "aa-OO-gah!" General hilarity followed, and one woman said she really would like the "aa-OO-gah" boob. Since she had her bilateral mastectomy, she missed having the "bumpers" that protect her from people getting too close and "in your face" when they give you a hug, so the "aa-OO-gah" boob would serve as both buffer and protective alarm. If either of these ideas exist, I haven't seen them in the cancer products market -- maybe they are in joke stores.

Rosie's thought was that it isn't really socially acceptable to go around squeezing your boob (even a pretend boob), which is true, this is just an idea I had to share with my friends. But it is one of the ironies I've considered before. I remember once seeing a poster on the subway, reminding women to do a monthly self-breast exam. Now, there I am on the subway reading this, and of course it is also a time when people have a few spare minutes -- it could be a practical use of time. But although you see all kinds of acts of personal hygiene in the subway (including applying mascara and flossing of teeth), to engage in the potentially life-saving act of touching your own breast is something our culture frowns upon. It's all because of the breast as a site of sexual pleasure -- and thus a highly charged topic, one generally taboo in public. But if only we could better compartmentalize the different functions of the breast. After all, I saw a woman very comfortably breast-feeding her baby on a bus not too long ago. And I think everyone would agree that when you are thinking about breast cancer, the breast is not a site of sexual pleasure!