A Pound of Flesh

I used to get really mad. Specifically about the idea that prophylactic mastectomy was somehow a logical preventative measure to avoid breast cancer. I was angry at the medical establishment that convinced women that doing away with POTENTIALLY worrisome parts of their body was a good way of staying healthy. I felt like it was part and parcel of an attempt to continue to experiment on women's bodies under the guise of healing.
Now that I'm a parent, I say take 'em.
The problem is, I am a terrible worrier. Always have been. I think up these "scenarios" my Mom calls them. I imagine terrible things happening. When I was young it was losing my parents, now that I'm a parent, it has to do with my kids. I worry about fires, I worry about driving into a body of water by accident and trying to figure out how to get them both out, I worry about one of them getting sick and I worry about me, because I want them to have me and I want to have them.
I have been hearing waaay too many stories of young women, women my age, diagnosed with breast or some other cancer and then dead a year later, leaving behind young children. I am terrified this will happen to me. There. It's out.
Lately, my one breast has been sore. Not always, but as it never used to be, it worries me. Now I know that they do get tender before a period and the other one is a bit sore too, but I'm still concerned. I've been to the doctor who can't feel anything out of place, but today I found about about inflammatory breast cancer, which is lumpless and results in, you guessed it, soreness.
Monday I'm calling the doctor.
I can't keep worrying about this stuff. My Mom keeps telling me to leave it with the Lord but I'm sure that's what M did and C did and countless others, and where did it get them? A one way trip to Heaven. So I say take 'em. Cut the buggers off. I can't spend my life worrying that I'm carrying around ticking time bombs and I don't want to spend one more moment worrying that my kids will grow up without a Mom. Too many kids are already.