I heard the dreaded words tumble from my doctor’s mouth.
“It’s time.”
Really? When did I cross this threshold? I am about to join the club of women over forty, who have been served their papers, irritatingly pink, displaying an inhumanely symmetrical pair of breasts.
I have to get a mammogram.
I know it isn’t the end of the world, but I leave the office with a lump in my throat, a slight whimper in my voice. My friends have told me, in whispers harkening back to fourth grade slumber parties, “and then this happened and then THIS happened…”
Basically it is an annoying procedure, lying somewhere between “not fun” and “really painfully bad.” From what I hear, a technician takes your breast in hand, roughly like one would take a hunk of veal before pounding it thin, and jams it into what can only be described as a giant waffle iron. Or perhaps it is more of a Panini grill. Either way, the idea of having my always-tender girls jammed into a massive flat iron fills me with dread.
My friend with small boobs said it hurt, because they tried to jam her peaks, which she thinks join the ranks of “ittibiitititticommitee”, awkwardly in. In my mind, I see them escaping off the edges, like a Rorschach inkblot trying to leave the paper.
Then there are my more endowed pals, who say it is like squashing a boulder into a fax machine. One friend who has implants, said they shove the IMPLANTS UPWARD AND OUT OF THE WAY before then jamming the breast into the grinder, which made her shriek and cry in agony, which the technician routinely ignored. These aren’t breasts to these people; they are fleshy appendages that must be x-rayed.
And once again, I think if men had to go through the same procedure, there would suddenly be a technological breakthrough in the medical community. If men had to put their nut-sack in a Panini griller, as someone in a sterile white coat said, “Now, just take a deep breath as I stand on this and jump up and down,” there would be an uproar.
I can only imagine.
“Behold! We have scrapped the nut-crushing x-ray for the new, hi-resolution medical imaging velvet bag! There are different sized bags, for different sized nuts! So easy and comfortable, you can read the paper while having your test!”
Meanwhile, women get “The Mangler.”
Maybe it’s up to me to design a new test.
After all, every woman is different, so why shouldn’t there be a comfortable way to do this? We could use, I don’t know, Tupperware as a model. Hi-res imaging Tupperware, that suctioned itself on like those old-fashioned bank tubes.
Thuuunk.
We could even find our perfect size at home, relaying the information to the technician.
“I am a mid-sized oval casserole container” or, “I am a snack-and-go applesauce cup.”
There must be a better way. Time for me to do some research, and contact Tupperware, as I’ve just found a way to increase their business.