Donna in Hollywoodland

Female Medical Things - Mammogram

If you hate reading about Female Medical Things, I suggest you page down to the previous post.

I was a good girl today. I did what I was supposed to do. I went an got my yearly mammogram. Even tho I was more than one year overdue.

I actually went to the doctor last week, complaining of some unusual soreness in my left breast. I have had problems in the past with cysts, so I really wasn't concerned. I've been drinking to much caffeine, and not taking my vitamin E ...
If you avoid caffeine, and take extra vitamin E it does help, at least for me. So I have just been screwing up lately.

My doctor wasn't to thrilled when he looked at my records and saw that I was way past due for all my female stuff. He let me know on no uncertain terms that I needed to schedule my mammogram and my pap smear right away.

Its not I don't want to get them done. Its just so inconvenient to try to schedule the appointment, and find time. So to schedule my mammogram ... I actually had to move my Teeth Cleaning one more month ahead. Now my Dentist is going to be mad because its been the second time I have rescheduled that, and the Dentist Stuff is also overdue.

When you figure all the other things in, like Automobile maintenance, DMV stuff, the Cats Vet things... not to mention laundry, grocery shopping, and whatever else ... I am amazed that I manage to have a Full Time Job, Work on an Acting Career, Post a Blog, and Do Volunteer Work. Sometimes my apartment looks like a cyclone struck it, and theres a big pile of clean laundry in the corner because I don't have time to put it away. With all the things on my list, tidying up is towards the bottom. There is just alot to get done.

I'm actually not afraid of the actual mammogram test. It can be very uncomfortable. If you have never had one, they have to squish the breast and make it flatter than a pancake to get a good xray. And that can get to be alittle painful as you can image.

I usually go in and start talking to the technician. Telling her I am alittle sensitive and I find mammograms painful. I just chat like that so they are careful.
One time, years back, the technician squished me so bad I thought I was going to faint, and I ended up with a bruise.. So I make sure to tell them up front to be gentle. I let them know I don't handle pain well ... and that basically I am just a big baby when it comes to this stuff.

This time, they had alittle room where there were lockers and smocks. I put my clothing and purse in the locker, and took the key with the wrist elastic. Then I wrapped my naked top part in the smock. I joined two other women sitting in a little waiting room across the hall - both of them dressed just like I was in a smock.
We sat and waited until they called my name.

When I went in to the mammogram room, I gave the technician my speech about being gentle. This technician was gentle, but it is still uncomfortable. You've got your arm pulled over a machine. Your body contorted at an unnatural angle. Your breast squished between two pieces of hard plastic.
Then they say "Don't move. Hold your breath. Stop breathing. Don't breath. Don't breath. Don't breath. Don't breath. Okay, you can breath now."
And you let out a gasp, and the two pieces of hard plastic come undone, and your breast in now un-squished.

Notice how I wrote the above as if I was talking about someone else. Hmmm, its alittle to painful to even put in personal "First Person" terms.

I couldn't help but think what a special person this woman technician was. To have to xray female after female, and physically move around some strangers breasts on a plastic tray - some of whom are probably in pain and not the best health. I thought of her as some kind of Angel. It is not the easiest job, and I know for a fact that I could never do something like that.

Then I had to wait in the little waiting room with other women to make sure the xray was readable. At first she thought she would have to do one over. But she changed her mind, and I was free to go.

There was someone in the changing room, so I had to wait. When a 50-ish lady came out, I went in. And this poor woman was in a total fluster. Her clothes were laying in a heap in the room, she hadn't put them in a locker. She said something like "Is that your smock laying there." I could tell she was not handling her stress over getting the mammogram very well.
When I came out, the nurse was there waiting, and asked the woman to put her belongings in a locker. The woman said "Locker, what locker. Oh,I didn't even see the lockers."
I mean, the entire wall in the changing room was a row of lockers. So the nurse took over to help this poor woman who was so nervous and jittery that she couldn't think straight.

My reward for getting my mammogram done was supposed to be Breakfast out at a Restaurant. I tend to do that. If it is something that I need to get done and that I really don't want to do - I reward myself for doing it. I put alittle tape inside my head: "If you get your mammogram done, then you can have a sit-down breakfast at a restaurant." It helps to motivate me.

I drove to Dinah's Restaurant not to far from the Medical Center. I guess they weren't opened for breakfast. So I went across the street to the El Portal Mexican Restaurant that advertised in big letters "Breakfast Served", and had a little neon "Open" sign flashing in the window. They were closed too.

Okay, never mind. Maybe my breakfast treat would have to wait until the weekend. I needed to get to the office anyway.
Driving to work, my left arm started to hurt. Down towards my wrist where people tend to get carpal tunnel syndrome. It was from being contorted in a weird posture over the xray machine. Within an hour the pain was gone and I was back to normal.

Mammogram Info :
Yahoo Breast Cancer Info
The Breast Cancer Site
National Cancer institute
National Consumers League
U.S. Institutes of Health