With age comes benefits – experience, wisdom, and, as a woman, the mammogram. I just had my second one, which at the age of 46 could mean that I don’t go frequently enough, go just enough, or go too frequently, depending upon whose guidelines you follow and how recently you read them (if it was more than five minutes ago, they may have changed). The medical world can’t seem to make up its mind regarding the necessary frequency of the mammogram. And they seem to be doing a lot of studies on it. Lots and lots of studies on how often women get mammograms and if this type of screening is beneficial and saves us from breast cancer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it isn’t important to find out this information. But, I would like to request that, along the way, they do a few studies on how to examine the breast in a different way than painfully crushing it between two metal panels. At various angles. Because that shit hurts.
It all starts so nicely. I go into a little dressing room, put my clothes and belongings into a little shopping bag and put on a nice white bathrobe. It all has a very spa-like feeling to it. That’s kind of mean because it all comes to a brutal end when you enter the giant metal room and they tell you to slip your left arm out and slap your boob on the table. Talk about adding insult to injury – you have to put it up there yourself like you are offering it up for a sacrifice.
Meanwhile, the tech is a nice little old lady, which only makes me realize they really haven’t made any advances in the mammography field. When was the last time you had a sonogram or an MRI or anything else that required a piece of advanced medical equipment that was operated by an older person? I’m not trying to be ageist here, but they are always on the younger side. But here’s the mammogram lady, in her 30th year of operating it – no additional training required.
Like I said, she is very kind and is chatting with me and I am doing my best to answer her, but as I mentioned earlier my boob is being crushed after I propped it on a table and held it there while she moved it around to get it in the perfect position before pressing a button to lower the second plate onto it (is it me or does that seem awfully similar to the death traps used in a lot of adventure movies on the way to the gold?). After a few short answers (not mean, just short, like you tend to when you don’t want to be impolite but your tit really hurts) she says “are you okay? You seem like you don’t really want to be here.” I’m not joking – she really said that. Seriously, old lady crushing my boob? Do you get people that *do* want to be here? Do you think I should be enjoying this? What kind of crazy old lady are you?
After I had my mammogram, I had to have a sonogram on my thyroid (don’t ask – it was just one of those days where I did everything in one shot to get it out of the way). I had a nice young woman as the tech (thereby supporting my earlier theory) who squeezed some gel on a little hand held thing which she gently rolled around my throat and under my chin – almost massaging me at times. I was able to chat with her at the moments when it was just resting there as she took a picture and then gently moved it to the next spot. It was very relaxing.
So medical world, a little customer feedback if you will. As you continue to spend money investigating mammograms, in addition to frequency, could you put a few cents into figuring out how to turn them into a gentle massage with some warm gel? Me and my boobs would greatly appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment