Important Health Note

This post is mainly for women, but it really applies to anyone.

In addition to the recommended breast self-exams and mammograms, I have one more thing to add: When checking your body as part of weight loss changes, pay extra attention to anything that seems out of place. Guys, you, too.

I'm saying this because I've just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

A mammogram showed the nodule after I had dropped 51 pounds in 15 months (I'm now in maintenance). The nurse with whom I spoke during my biopsy pre-op had experienced the same thing several years ago, after she had dropped 60 pounds over the course of a year. Cancer had been present in both cases.

A staffer at the American Cancer Society resource center said that considerable weight loss can reveal abnormalities that extra fat and tissue had previously hidden.

How prevalent is this? The closest thing I could find relates not to weight loss per se, but to breast reduction surgery. Such surgery uncovers abnormalities in about one in ten women:
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1506/98/34097/breast-reduction-surgery-often-uncovers-abnormal-cells.html

Does toxin release from weight loss play a role here? I honestly don't know, but I checked into that, too. This article has more:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/EnvironmentalHealth/22080

Right now, that's beside the point. On balance, I am much, much healthier than I had been, and my better health and fitness will help me now. If anything, losing weight decreases cancer risk:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity

I'm post-menopausal, so my main risk factor here is age.

Women, if you haven't been doing breast self-exams, please start. Mammograms, too.

Even breast self-exams can miss things, which is why I'm writing this post. After the fact, once I knew where to look, I could find the nodule by feel. So, why didn't I find it before?

I couldn't find it because my body had changed considerably. The nodule rests on muscle. My muscles have been developing, just as I can feel my bones closer to the skin. I had enough changes going on so that my tumor simply had gotten lost in all that noise.

My take-away from this: During weight loss, pay extra attention to body changes because we are in effect moving targets. Learn your body -- what's muscle, what's bone, what's odd. This doesn't apply only to cancer; it can also apply to things like hernias.

I'm not raising an alarm here. I'm just saying, be a bit more vigilant. Don't be afraid to feel yourself up. Our bodies are where we live, so if my roof is leaking I want to know about it.

My prognosis is good; the type of cancer I have is relatively non-aggressive. I'll know more after surgery (my consult with the surgeon is next week, surgery date TBD). You might say I'm in good fighting spirit.

Keep up the great work, everyone! Cherish your bodies whatever their shape and size and keep tabs on what's happening with them.

Good fightin' vibes appreciated here, too. Thanks!