The Smelker Seven

Tortuous Times

Tomorrow I enter a torture chamber and the worst part is when I’m done, I will pay the bill!

It all started Wednesday when I saw my doctor for a checkup.
“When was your last mammogram, Mrs. Smelker?” he enquired.
“What do you mean last?” I was startled. Don’t all the commercials on TLC recommend you get an annual mammogram beginning at age 40? I had spent my entire life trying to avoid 40 solely for this reason, now he’s asking when my last one was?

“Well, I generally recommend my patients get their first at 35, and then one every couple of years until 40 and then an annual one thereafter.”
“Good thing you weren’t my doctor five years ago,” I said with a light laugh. His face demonstrated his total lack of amusement.
“In order for me to clear you for another surrogacy you have to get one.”

I called the clinic when I got home to schedule the appointment. “I can fit you in on Thursday” proclaimed the impossibly chirpy, probably 20-something who has another two decades to go before SHE worries about mammograms.
“You mean Thursday next week?”
“No. Thursday tomorrow, or even this Friday.”
Ok, right there that tells me something. I had to schedule an appointment a month in advance to have my baby and I was already in labour! But the mammogram technician could see me the next day??
“Um, Friday will be fine, I guess.”

The nurse assured me that it really isn’t that big a deal. Personally I don’t see the need for the darn thing in the first place, but I am an obedient person (hah!!) I know my ‘girls’ are fine, no lumps, no painful areas because I have them examined on an almost daily basis by a certain member of this house, who shall remain nameless.

I’m not buying ‘it really isn’t that big a deal’. What if the mammogram machine is like my daughter’s Shrinki-Dink? You know the machine — you create an object, you put it in the machine, wait for a few minutes, coincidentally the same amount of time my ‘girls’ will be in the mammogram machine — and voila, the object is miniaturized. What if I go in one size, and come out a triple-nothing? Would I still love myself? Would my husband still love me? Even more importantly, is there a return policy on all those bras I bought last week?

The nurse also informed me that I was not to wear perfume, or deodorant. Huh? It's not bad enough I am stripped of my dignity, I have to smell bad too while I am examined by some post-adolescent spotty boy? And who is the sadist who thought this machine up in the first place? I’m guessing it was a person of the male persuasion who grew up with some kind of complex and decided to take it out on all women by squishing them as tightly as possible all in the name of good health and science. Where’s the machine to test for testicular cancer? Oh d’uh! — there isn’t one!

So, I have one last night to look at my pre-mammogram ‘girls’ before stepping to the rack and paying for the privilege of having a technician try to squish the life out of me.

I think I need a coffee, no make that an espresso. Wait! Make it a double!

Labels: mammogram, Surrogate

posted by The Smelker Seven @ 3:59 PM