Mammo-great

October is breast cancer awareness month and yet there isn’t a month that goes by that I don’t know about my mother-in-law who passed away 29 years ago this January from breast cancer.  So in our house, every month is breast cancer awareness month. 

Because each month, I look at my kids and wish she was here to enjoy them and or even to just meet them.  I look at my daughter, 13 years old, and think about her future and whether the breast cancer that took my mother-in-law will be passed along to her.  And I think back to when I moved here and how I was lucky enough to turn 40 and discover the world-famous Elizabeth Wende Breast Care clinic for my first and subsequent mammograms.

Each year I look forward to my trip to Elizabeth Wende.  I know it’s crazy to look forward to my breasts being smooshed into a pancake and sitting in a cold gown with my top off.   But, I call it my “me-time mammogram.”  Because how many other times do I get to go somewhere and turn off for a few hours.  Just sit quietly and read a book, wrapped in a cozy shawl, drinking herbal tea.  I always wait for my results so I can walk out the door feeling like I know all I need to know about my breasts from the amazing doctors and staff.  And if I wait I can even sign up for a chair massage.  (Last year I went too early and missed the massage – never doing that again).

There’s something about the atmosphere there that is special and I think it comes from the top down.  After attending the annual Toast2Hope event which benefits the Breast Cancer Research and Patient Support Programs of the American Cancer Society I got a chance to learn more about Dr. Wende Logan-Young, the founder of the clinic.    Someone called her the Katherine Hepburn of mammography.  She’s a roller-blading, visionary who has been quoted as saying that we are put on this earth to have fun.  What she does is serious medicine but she does it with attitude. 

That night I also heard Dr. Stamatia Destounis who works with Dr. Logan-Young speak eloquently, holding back tears,  about her colleague Dr. Dinotto who died 8 years ago of breast cancer at the age of 42. These are doctors who get it. They understand that this disease is personal, that so many of us are touched by it because they’ve been touched by it too. 

Dr. Destounis came to Rochester at the age of 12 from Greece, grew up here, attended college and medical school in Upstate New York, and was finishing her residency at the University of Rochester when she decided to camp out at Dr. Logan-Young’s clinic in 1991 to ask for a fellowship.  At the time, Dr. Logan-Young was doing pioneering work and Dr. Destounis wanted to learn from her.  Dr. Logan-Young accepted her as the first fellow at the clinic and she’s been there ever since.  

She said in the last 20 years a lot has changed, what was pioneering has become the norm and now many other centers have realized that mammograms are anxiety-provoking exams for a lot of women and that they need to provide comfort as well as medical expertise.

But no other clinic can boast a pioneer like Dr. Logan-Young who still finds the time to roller-blade along the nearby canal trail or in the parking lot.   Or Dr. Destounis, who has a big heart and a hearty laugh.

Dr. Destounis says that every month is breast cancer awareness month at the Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic.  Just as every month should be breast cancer awareness month for all women when we perform our monthly self-breast exam.  Just as it is at our house.