Carol Scott-Conner

Good Enough

3 Comments / Poems / By Carol Scott-Conner

Three weeks after my mastectomy, I traveled south.
I slung my carry-on bag crosswise over my body
and jostled my way through the airport, the bag
in front of me, to form a barrier, protecting my incision.
I let my arm rest on the bag,
to take the tension off the shoulder.

Microcalcifications

4 Comments / Poems / By Carol Scott-Conner

A cluster, I say,
so small – see? I can cover it
with the tip of my finger. Tiny little
calcifications. I show
you the mammogram.

How to Fire Your Doctor

1 Comment / Letting Go / By Carol Scott-Conner

Look your doctor straight in the eye. It’s okay to smile. Or not–it’s your choice.

Don’t mince words. When your doctor says, “I’d like you to try this prescription…” (or physical therapy or whatever) “…and come back in three months,” that’s your cue. By all means take the prescription, or the referral sheet, and then say, “I won’t be coming back. I’m going to look for a new doctor…”

Finding Answers

Leave a Comment / Hope / By Carol Scott-Conner

When he was 24 years old, my first husband had a stroke. A blood clot blocked a vital artery deep in his brain. One side of his body fell flaccid. Speech and language fled. To all of my urgent questions, the neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital could only reply, “We don’t know.” They didn’t know why it happened. There was no way to dissolve the clot or reverse the damage. They simply tried to keep him alive and waited.

Cover-up

9 Comments / Stories / By Carol Scott-Conner

Carol Scott-Conner

“The plastic surgeons tell me that women who like to swim do much better with reconstruction than with prostheses,” says a young breast surgeon at our weekly Breast Cancer Tumor Board, the working conference where we discuss every new breast cancer patient before starting treatment.

There’s a slight note of surprise in her voice; to her, it’s simply another consideration when advising women before mastectomy.

For decades, the only option after a mastectomy was a prosthesis, or breast form–something shaped and weighted to fill the empty cup of the brassiere and lie, more or less comfortably, against the chest wall. I sometimes tell my patients that using a prosthesis is a bit like going back to the days when we were little girls, stuffing our bras with tissues or old socks to fill them out.