Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Woman Handled

About two weeks ago I had my first ever mammogram. It was a tad later than expected but I didn’t know they couldn’t do it if you were pregnant or nursing. No big deal although I was surprised that the manipulations required for getting a good picture were somewhat like a game of Twister. But it was fast, generally painless and I was out within minutes. They told me they’d call in the next couple of days if there was a problem with the images. No call; I thought I was home free.

A week and a half later they called me back and told me that they wanted me to come back. Of course I told myself that everything would be fine while I freaked out about the possibility of having cancer because, you know, it’s always the worst case scenario. At any rate, I had to go back in yesterday. When I got there, they had my films up there with something that appeared to be nothing circled on the film and a recommendation for more films and an ultrasound. And here I’d thought they’d just gotten crappy films and needed to retake them so I was in semi-freak mode. Did you know that semi-freak mode messes with your ability to concentrate on a book?

More woman-handling Twister manipulations and two new films still showed something there. Then wait wait wait. An ultrasound that showed absolutely nothing. Yay! But of course there was more wait wait wait. More Twister, three more films. Wait wait wait. And wait wait wait. Oops, they forgot to come and talk to me. I went to the desk and demanded (nicely) to know what was going on. After many apologies, the final word was, uh, we don’t know, come back in six months and we’ll see if there is a change.

Modern medicine is so satisfying sometimes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Somehow the contortions required to access the mammogram machine always give me the giggles - but I never thought of it as a game of twister!

I'm sorry they have kinda left you hanging here, but the negative ultrasound is good news.

Anonymous said...

Oh, how freaking annoying! I'm sure it's nothing, but I'm sorry you have to wait six months for the confirmation. Grrrrr.

Anonymous said...

isn't it supposed to be a cold, dehumanizing type of machine, as well. UGH.

it ought to be unethical or disallowed is a better term perhaps for doctors and such to harumph and gnaw over what they're saying/seeing and then say Gee, we dont know.

Anonymous said...
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Anne V said...

It's a machine so yup, it's sort of dehumanizing but that is sort of diluted by the techs who seem to be larger than life.