Chug It

This is my week for 'routine screenings.' I'm telling you that routine screenings are often anything but routine.

Here's your warning. If you have a sensitive stomach, you should stop reading now. Just stop. No need to keep reading as this is going to be a TMI moment. Really. Just click that little red X in the upper right-hand corner and go read something else. I won't be offended. You're not going to miss anything. Really. 

Still here? Think you're tough, do you? Don't say I didn't warn you.

My mammogram went fairly well last week, but I'm sure that woman cranked the vice grips until my mouth came open. That was her cue that it was tight enough.

"Don't breathe," she said every time she reached that point. How could I? My breast was clamped to the point of bursting. If she had asked me to tell secrets of national security, I would have spilled my guts, told them everything. I would have made up a list of communists on the spot. I wondered if anyone ever burst a boob on her watch. But, to her credit, she was quick and there were only four clamps and I was done. The warm robe was nice, but nothing, I'm telling you nothing was going to make me forget that this wasn't some sort of sadistic day spa. It's a mammogram people. The spa atmosphere just didn't do it for me. It might even give me the jitters when I'm about to get my next hot stone massage. Will my therapist be confused as to why she's there? If she tells me not to breathe, I am jumping off that damned table, hot stones and all. My breasts are aching just thinking about it.

Moving on.

Now, it is 3:27am and I'm preparing for a colonoscopy. I only have three more glasses of that stuff to drink and then I can relax. Well, I'll be spending the next hour in the bathroom, but I can mostly relax. I hate drinking that stuff. It makes me gag.

Being a frequent flier with colonoscopies, I recommend that you make sure your bathroom is clean, heated, and cozy for your visit.

----I just deleted a bunch of details I wrote. -----

It may be 3:53 in the morning and I'm nearly drunk on MoviPrep and not eating for two days, but I will not tell you the gory details, not even for your own good.

Don't you just love when some old fart tells you details about his colostomy bag or his gall stones or his hernia as if it's for your own good?

Oh God! I've become that old person. I have. I promise that I will not tell you details of my latest surgery. My grandma used to do that, scars and all. It was horrifying. No six year old girl wants to see the eight inch scar across her grandma's belly. I used to try to tell her that, but did she listen? Did she? Crap, she should have known by the look on my face.

And here I am telling you about colonoscopies. Sorry. There is a reason I stayed away all week. I was trying to preserve your sense of control over age. Here's the truth. You don't get as much control as you get older. It gets worse and worse until you're finally hooked up to machines and they breathe and eat for you. I'm telling you. Getting old sucks and I'm going to fight it all the way.

But I am on a schedule for my screenings. I'm not sure if I'm losing control here or maintaining it a bit longer because I'm trying to stay healthy.

Guess what? I've just finished the last of my MoviPrep. If they tell you that you need MoviPrep, they are NOT giving you a package of popcorn, soda, and your 3-D glasses. Drinking that stuff is the worst part of the whole deal. I think it helps to use cold water even though the instructions say to use lukewarm water. It's also better if you close your eyes and don't breathe while you're drinking it. It's flavored something like Gatorade and I'm not a fan, so I just chug as if I were still in college. Remember those people yelling, 'Chug it, chug it, chug it' until somebody puked? At the end, I wanted to smash that glass right into the fireplace in victory.

Now I just have to let it pass. That's the thing about these 'routine screenings.' There's a lot you just have to endure in the hopes that you won't have to do it for another five years. Well, it's a year for your mammogram, but who's counting?

Thanks for listening, jb

The Spring Vice and Its Applications

I scheduled my mammogram last week after procrastinating for two months.  The woman on the phone was nice, telling me I wasn't that bad, that many women wait a lot longer. 

"Are you having any problems with your breasts?" she asked.

"Well, they're sagging a lot more than they used to."

....

"No real problems?" 

Except for the lack of any humor, no.  No real problems. 

"Your appointment is at 11:00 am.  Your actual appointment.  That means that you should arrive about fifteen minutes before your appointment."

"Huh?"

"Well, we'd like you to get here for your appointment on time, so could you show up fifteen minutes ahead so that you can check in?"

"Okay," I said.  I don't get this.  If the appointment is at 11:00 am and I show up at 11:00 am, then how am I late if I don't care to sit in their waiting room for fifteen extra minutes?  Some places quibble over that sort of thing.  I want to tell them that they should say my appointment is 10:45 am then and not at 11:00 am.  Or let the X-ray technician sleep in for fifteen minutes every morning and get each appointment started five minutes after I check in at 11:00am, or later because I'll have to sit in the waiting room and wait for them anyway.  No, no real problems, except for the lack of sense of humor.

So then on Monday, they called and left a message that they'd like me to call back and preregister for my appointment.  Okay, can you copy my photo ID and my insurance card over the phone?  Do you plan to bill me in advance as well?  Can you give me the privacy policy to review ahead of time?  Just what are you going to do over the phone?  I did not call them back.

So I arrived for my 11:00 am appointment at 10:45 am.  I was checked in at 10:50 am and proceeded to read my book until 11:20 am.  So much for the actual appointment being at 11:00 am.  I didn't actually mind the delay.

When they finally called me back, I was ready.  I'm fifty-two years old.  I know the drill with these things.  It'll probably be quick.  If I'm lucky, I'll get a sensitive woman doing the work.

No such luck today.  This woman grabbed my breast like it was a piece of meat on a cutting board, waiting to be tenderized.  No stance I took was good enough.  She'd get me nearly clamped down and then she'd start over.  It was humiliating and awkward.

Then she'd clamp the two plates together.

"Don't move," she said as she ambled behind the leaded barrier.  What was I going to do?  If I'd moved, it would have torn my breast off.

"Don't breathe," she said.  I could hear her snickering under her breath.  Masochist!  Okay, I didn't hear her snickering, but really.  How the hell could I have breathed at that moment?  My knees were bent, my face pressed up against Plexiglas, my left hand was holding my left breast out of the way and my right breast was clamped so tightly in the vice, I couldn't have breathed if I'd wanted to.  I was at her mercy. If I did it wrong, she'd make me do the whole thing over again. Four times, I endured this torture to get the correct views, each time it seemed that she screwed those plates down tighter than the time before.  I'm surprised one of my breasts didn't pop like a tomato on a grill. 

Honestly, if men had to get this test done once a year to screen for testicular cancer, someone would have designed a better machine.  Where the hell are all the fifty year old female biomedical engineers? I want one of them to design a better mammogram device that isn't closely related to a spring vice. 

Later, when I was at the market, I texted Mike to find out what he wanted for dinner.  He knew where I had been.  His reply:

turkey breast, tenderized

Smart ass!  When I got home, I took some Advil, but I'm still sore.  I'll be sore again tomorrow. I'll be sagging more tomorrow too.  No real problems.  No.

Thank you for listening, jb 

'At Home' with Bill Bryson

I'm listening to Bill Bryson read his book, 'At Home.' I love Bill Bryson. I've never actually met Bill Bryson, but I think he must be an all around good guy and imagine that his wife considers herself lucky to have him, the font of information and good humor that he is. Also, in twenty years, he'll do a good impersonation of Santa Claus and the kids might learn something valuable about geography or science from him as they wait. And what mom wouldn't like that?

When I first began to read a book by Bryson, I quickly found he was taking me somewhere good. I laughed all the way up the Appalachian trail while reading 'A Walk in the Woods.' I've only walked bits and pieces of it, but I've seen those extra socks and screw drivers along the trail that unenthusiastic packers left behind. I could tell you a long story about the ten-day trip I took with my MYF group in high school, but it boils down to one fact: I am still pissed off that I had to carry extra weight because Annette Oppenheimer absolutely refused to poop in the woods the entire trip. So from my very first experience reading Bryson, I had something in common with him in dropping bits of chaff, mostly Annette's chaff, as I went.

I've traveled through Europe with Bryson in 'Neither Here Nor There,' through my strip mall neighborhood, the states, in 'The Lost Continent', and into Australia in 'The Sunburned Country.' I even spent some time with him while wearing a cape in Iowa, reading 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.' Why I wanted to spend time in Iowa after growing up in Indiana, I will never know, but I really enjoyed the trip. I even traveled with him to the far reaches of the universe in 'A Short History of Nearly Everything.' Now, that was quite a trip for me. I learned that every modern person likely carries at least eight actual molecules from Buddha or Jesus, I can't remember which. (Does it really matter?)

Today, while Bryson described the archaeology of his neighborhood in 'At Home,' he went with me on my errands. He may have felt my regret at having to cut him off when my husband called to talk about the waterfall in our yard because our uphill neighbor rerouted his drainage. Bryson may have seen how I was three minutes late for my mammogram because I was listening to him talk about Joseph Paxton's crystal palace in 1851. Okay, so I wasn't at all looking forward to elongating my already lengthening breasts through vile manipulation and plate-glass breast sandwiching. I didn't want to embarrass him by bringing him in, though, even if it would have made a great distraction. So, after I survived nearly having my breast ripped off because the technician thought herself a comedienne and I forgot and laughed, it was a relief to know Bryson was still waiting for me when I got back into my car.

Next on my list was a short trip to Transylvania to have my blood drawn. I swear this woman has an Eastern European accent. She loves sticking that wide hollow needle into my fat green vein. Again, Bryson waited for me in the car, likely preferring the car to the view of my blood pouring into the vial that the vampire swore she'd get tested for TSH levels before she drank it.

Bryson quickly made me forget all that as I met up with him in the car, only a little green from my experiences. Then he told me all about how the Saxons invaded and quietly changed British culture where the Romans failed. He also talked about food. That made me hungry, so I stopped at the British Pantry and picked up a half a dozen steak and vegetable pies and a lancashire pasty. Now, I wonder if Bryson will tell me who invented those. I love when history and food intersect, especially at the end of a harrowing day of running errands. My thanks to Bryson's wife for sparing him for an afternoon.

Thank you for listening, jb