Me and my possible third nipple

One day I will die of cancer. I'm convinced about this, I think it's a scientific fact. I'm not worried about it, everybody dies one day for one reason or another, might as well be cancer. The problem is that you can't say these things out loud. It's seen as gross or morbid, or like I'm "asking for it". Like you could get cancer by thinking about it. So since I can't talk about this with people, I'm writing about it.

The reason why I think I'll one day die of cancer is that there's been a lot of it in my family. My grandparents have had it, and other close relatives as well. Not to mention that in general more and more people get it these days. I'm also very light skinned, and I've been sunburned a million times, so the chance of skin cancer is rather high I suppose. Living in Italy where I start to get sunburns in March doesn't help either, or the fact that I often fall asleep at the beach. Obviously I put on sunscreen that looks like butter and has the SPF of 50, but still, sun is sun and there's no running from it if you want to stay outside on a summer day.

Some say that I should use the tanning beds in order to make my skin used to the UV-rays. I have mixed feelings about it. To me using the tanning bed WOULD be like "asking for cancer", even if it might help you later on with the real sun and getting a nice brown tan (not possible in my case anyway). On the other hand, a friend of mine says "I'm going to die one day anyway, so should I die of skin cancer, at least I'll go with a nice tan". I guess that's one way of putting it.

Saturday evening I got home early (well, at 00.30 anyway) and decided to watch some TV. There was hardly nothing on, so I tuned into this program that talked about embarrassing diseases that people have. There's this truck with a bunch of doctors inside that receive their patients inside the vehicle without appointment, so you can just go and have your weird disease checked out without a charge. The only thing is that you and your weird disease get transmitted via TV for the rest of the world to see. Not exactly private, but at least you get to be on TV.

There was this woman with two nipples on her left breast. This is actually fairly common, they said, and nothing to be worried about. It made me think of Chandler in the TV show Friends (he has a third nipple on this stomach or back or something).

Friends episode 4 on season 2 youtube

Anyways, this got me thinking about myself. For about a year now I've had this tiny little mole kind of a thing right under my armpit. "Only it's not a mole", said the doctor, "I don't know what it is. If it grows let me know". And she sent me home. And rightly so, it's just a lump near my breast right??!! I decided not to panic, and to do as she said and see if it grows or not. And it hasn't. And Saturday night it finally hit me, maybe it's a third nipple!!! I explained the whole thing to my friends on Sunday and they said I was nuts, and refused to judge for themselves as I was already lifting up my shirt.

Even if I'm convinced that I'll one day die of cancer, I'd rather it not be now, but when I'm old and wrinkly and have no regrets. That's why I'm thrilled to think that I might possibly have a third nipple, or a mole, or a long lost twin growing out of my armpit, than breast cancer.

Did you know that October is the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Well it is. So go get your boobs checked out, even if it means that they get squashed inside the mammogram machine and afterwards look like the ears of a greyhound. Don't worry, they'll bounce back. Go get your boobs checked out even if you're not "in that age yet", because the sooner you start the better off you will be. Go get your boobs checked out because you get a cool picture of the insides of your tits, and you can show it off like it's the ultrasound of your unborn child (if you're into that stuff). And more importantly, check your boobs out yourself every now and then to see if there are any weird lumps or moles or whatnot. And while you're at it, take a look at them in the mirror and marvel at their splendor.

Just do it. It might be just a third nipple, or it might not.