Ever since Eve bit into that apple in the Garden, women have been suffering. Cramps, childbirth, bloating and moodiness are all part of the female mystique. And then, just when we think we've got it all under control, we get to do the really fun stuff: stirrups, weird gooey substances, and random people getting way too personal. Welcome to womanhood, ladies!
As someone with a family history of breast cancer, I got to start one of the greatest female joys, mammography, at a very early age. Most ladies get to wait until their 40s to experience the thrill, but today I experienced my fourth one at the tender age of 36. And it doesn't get any more fun.
I arrived at the clinic 30 minutes early, according to instruction (and contrary to belief, not all women are perpetually late) to fill out multiple forms about the size, shape, and history of my knockers, Thank goodness for HIPAA, lest more strangers get to read about it. Needless to say, I was the youngest person in the waiting room by at least two decades. Bessie and Bertha beside me discussed all of their friends who've died. Yeah, that's what I want to hear right before a mammogram.
Finally I was escorted to a dressing room to disrobe from the waist up. I asked, "Do I leave the gown open in the front?" Obviously I'd yet to unfold the baby pink contraption which was, I was soon to discover, technically a poncho. A very short poncho. So great... I get to walk throughout the clinic in my black dress pants, wearing a pink poncho not long enough to disguise the muffin top spilling over my belt. Bessie was beside herself when we passed in the hall.
Thankfully the technician did introduce herself before proceeding to violate me in 32 different ways. Don't you just love it when they tell you to lean forward, grab a steel bar with one of your hands, and then clamp one of your breasts in a vice? Yeah, I saw today, it actually said I had 12 pounds of pressure on each side. And then, just when you think you can't get any more uncomfortable, they tell you to not move and hold your breath. Just before I passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen, I get a "step back" reprieve. So I wait while she sees if her picture was good enough, all the while wearing my poncho as a pink superhero cape. Who am I, Squashed Boob Girl? Here to fight crime with breasts like a pancake? But the good news is that we only had to take a mere eight scans before I got to return my poncho to its original position, two inches above my waist.
I was then escorted back to my personal dressing room, where I got to thumb through three-year-old fashion magazines. Two hours later, more fun was had in the ultrasound room where another stranger squirted goo all over me and touched me with her cold hands, after which she invited in another lady to do the same. (Note to Jen... buy some gloves. Nobody likes a radiologist with cold hands.)
Ah, to be a man. I know they have the urologist, but something tells me that would be easier.
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3 comments:
You are too funny Lori, but so true! I too have been experiencing these for many years due to family history.
I think until you've DONE a rectal exam and said, "ok, you're just going to feel me spread your butt cheeks" (no, I don't really say that) or yanked a stent connected to the kidneys from a man's penis, maybe you should be thankful for pancake boobies :)
But the short pink vests? That is unacceptable!
You're too funny, Lori.
Ok, you win, Jen. So what you're saying is, getting a little personal with the cold hands is uneventful in the life of a radiologist, huh?
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