Mammorama

Well, after years of avoidance, I finally went through with it. I had a mammogram. You see, my plan was, if I waited long enough, the technology would advance to the point where the experience wouldn't be nearly as uncomfortable as the stories made it out to be. And believe me, there are stories. Women talk.

So, okay, I'm beginning my fourth decade. There's no going back. A woman's gotta do what she's gotta do. I braced myself for the worst.

The nurse led me into a small room with a machine that really did look like something out of a science fiction movie. This thing looked like it could flat iron my hair, transport me to Venus, and tell me the time when I got there. The nurse said to me, "Just pretend you're a model and we're going to take some pictures." The nurse, who was maybe a little over half my height, took another look (up) at me and said, "You really could have been a model." (It was the "could have been" that tweaked me just a bit).

I've noticed something about nurses (in my vast experience of about three or four trips to the hospital in my lifetime), especially the older ones. They develop their own style, their own little catch phrases for putting patients at ease. I'll never forget that one nurse I had when I was in labor with my son. "Just stay loose as a goose, loose as a goose." For an hour she said this. I was ready to knock her "loose as a goose" at that point. Thank God she went off shift. I was in labor for 20 hours and I don't think I could have handled it. Twenty hours of labor is one thing; twenty hours of "loose as a goose" and one might be capable of murder.

So, anyway, this nurse, the one who was giving me my mammogram, says to me that a lot of women are nervous when they come in, so she handles it like a photo shoot to make them relax. And you know, she wasn't far from the truth. Because it was "lay your arm here" and "turn your head this way" and "lean in" and "imagine you're Cleopatra." It did indeed feel just as awkward as a professional photo shoot. (You know the ones where you think "This is either going to look really weird or really spectacular." And then you see the picture later and it either looks really weird or really spectacular.) Perhaps the only difference was when she asked me if she was hurting me. Photographers would never ask that question. Beauty knows no pain.

It wasn't that bad, really. It was a bit of a squeeze and there were moments of discomfort, but it didn't last that long to be truly terrible. I'm not saying I'd rush out to do it again tomorrow, but maybe it won't take me a decade to get there next time around.