Memo to all: If you have time for a latte, you have time for a mammogram.

Up to the left. Over to the right. Feet straight. Move in. Right arm up and over. Not good. Hold your breath. No!. You’re not following directions. This isn’t going to work. Lift it up. Over to the side. Tilt your head. Step back.

I moved my feet in.

To the right. A step in. Chin up. As high up as you can get. Don’t go anywhere.

Where was I going?

This was the annual dance with a mammogram machine.

When I was about 29, I felt a lump in my left breast. My family doesn’t have a history of breast cancer but I still recall a story told by my grandmother. Her older sister, my great-aunt Stema Attas, had confided that she felt a mass in her breast. This was in the 1960s, when awareness, detection, and treatment were not as advanced as it is today. Auntie Stema finally went to see a doctor and by that time, it was too late. The cancer had spread. She died at the age of 70 in 1971.

To read more, visit my Substack, Pastrami a go-go and other wry tales of the city, by clicking here.