Health and dis-ease

The adventure of the mammogram

For those of you who have never had the pleasure (excuse my projectile expulsion of a hairball!), here is how it goes:

You are given an appointment and told to refrain from wearing deodorant.  There is a valid reason – some of the chemicals in deodorant would show up as suspicious spots.  If you forgot or if you needed to wear deodorant before going for the “mamm,”  a technician gives you a washcloth and soap to wash it off. 

You strip from the waist up and put on the traditional hospital gown.  Then you go into the room with the squashing machine.  The machine is like a small table top with three layers.  The bottom one holds an X-ray plate.  The remaining two are the horizontal vise.  Sounds like fun already, huh?  The technician can make the table tops lower and lift, just like a barber chair.

Next, the technician has you remove one of your arms from your gown while she visually judges the height of your boobs and tries to get the table top positioned perfectly.  You rest the exposed ta-ta on the bottom bit of the vise.  This is no easy trick for small-chested babes.   But, the well-endowed also complain that it is neither easy nor comfortable.  Somehow, the technician always wants you to be in a position where the vise plate is poking you in the armpit and your shoulder has to get moved away and you need to lean in some unnatural direction.

However, the fun is yet to come.  Now the technician electronically starts lowering the top of the vise.  Remember those movies where the hero is trapped in a room where the walls are closing in or where water is filling up to the ceiling?  This is how the ta-ta is being treated: it is getting squished to near-death.   Why?  “They” say this is what most effectively presents a clear and inclusive picture.  I believe them, but…..   I really want a testicular cancer screen to become popular and I want it to be a nut-cracker version of the mammogram.

So, the breast is hideously squashed and then you are told to hold your breath as you stand not moving in a backward bend away from the bear trap which is biting your boob.   Repeat on the other side and you are all done.

For this, and many other reasons, in the next lifetime – you can be the woman.

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