pictures

me in the groovy hospital gown, all ready to go (note the evil TV in the background that later was spewing pictures of burning nightclubs and barges while my IV was sending me into shock and i was trying to take deep breaths):

it was great that leanne got to come into the mammogram room - i think because i had such a hard time with the IV. because she was there, she took pictures of the whole thing.

below's a picture of my prior mammogram. if you look closely, you can see two circles - one towards the top, and one towards the bottom. that's where the calcifications are, and where the tissue is that they're going to remove and examine. you can even tell from this picture that they are hardly visible. there are other dots all over the place -- but those other ones are marks on the film, or dust, they say. so, because these things are so small, they need to do a surgical biopsy (actually removing tissue), and they first use x-ray (mammography) to locate the areas to remove.

all the white cloudy stuff is breast tissue. the "LMAL" means "left medial" (left breast, medial view) and "AL" for the tech who took it (our friend Aida):

the pictures that follow will zoom in on the top area in particular.