The Annual Boob-Squish

Today was my annual boob squish. Since the appointment was made three months ago, and there are no reminders, every year I have the same worry that I have got the date wrong. When I made this appointment, I was offered three venues and, as usual, I chose the Friendly Little Hospital {FLH}that is almost within walking distance.

The appointment was early, so, for a change, I had no parking problems. That is the only disadvantage of the FLH.  By the middle of the day, one has to park almost over the road or out in the boonies. But not today so I parked and went it. Step one is to tell the person at the front desk what I was here for, and here is where I get my fears of the wrong day assuaged. He looked at his list and put a check mark by my name. I went to the waiting area and started to read Confessions of a Shopaholic which is the book I got from the library since Amanda had not got a copy of the book club book. {I ordered it from Amazon.} Then I was called to a computer where I was asked all the questions I am always asked like where I live, who are my doctors and how am I planning to pay for this? The answers were as they always are.

Down the hall to the boob-squish area and I get to undress the top part of me and put on those lovely hospital gowns that fasten in the back and are forever coming open. Next I am handed a form to fill out which asked me {among many other things} when I started menopause and when I started menstruating. Every year I make a guess but this year I checked the “Don’t Remember” box. I would really have liked to have checked the “Look back at last-year’s form, you idiot!” but there was, alas, no box for that. So, then I got to sit and read and listen to the IPod. The television was, I am happy to say, off.

Eventually the boob-squish lady called me and in I went. Every year I think to myself what an odd job this is. She handles breasts all day. I also wondered if anyone actually gives in to the almost-irresistible urge to say, “Since you have your hand in the middle of my back, scratch right there, please?” Now, I am what you might call a well-endowed woman and for years I have had to have each boob-pix done in two parts. Since I have lost weight, I am down from a DD to a C and this time it took only one shot for each boob! {Hey, we take our happies where we find them.} Then she twisted me and the boobs round to an odd position and while she was doing the side shot, told me that next year I would have to go to either the Big Hospital or the Not-Quite-As-Big Medical Center since this was the last year mammogams were being done at the FLH.

Then it was all over. I will, she said, get the results in a week to ten days. I am not worried. Well, let me amend that to I am trying not to worry. Just because Fred’s “routine” colonoscopy found colon cancer does NOT mean that my “routine ” mammogram will find breast cancer…

So, one hour later, here I am back home. Fred isn’t even up yet and I am seriously thinking of going back to bed. This early rising is much overrated…

Until later…