Tough Titty

I had my yearly mammogram in mid-December and got a letter stating that I needed to return for further screening in the form of an ultrasound and diagnostic mammogram.

When I arrived for my appointment today, I met with a technician who spends her days grabbing other women's tatas and flopping them down on a frozen platform like freshly killed fish, then winching the nasty vice she got on sale at the Marquis de Sade Mart to the tightest notch.

I had been told the suspicious mass was in my left breast, but Amy, the technician, informed me that it was my right one. I said that I was confused as I had been told it was the left. She scanned the report and said she was sure it was the right, and maybe I had been given the wrong information.

I'm usually pretty understanding and let them off the hook, but this is my life we're talking about. "Well, I could have been," I said, "but would you please check again so we know for sure?"

She did. It was the left breast. Apparently those words look too much alike to be readily distinguished. L-E-F-T. R-I-G-H-T. Anybody could make that mistake.

She introduced me to her machine and directed me to remove the left sleeve of my robe. Second base on the first date. I felt so cheap. The machine was icy.

Why do they always ask, "Are you all right" from behind their safety barricade when you gasp involuntarily? And expect you to say you are. There is no way you are all right while your boobs are being squeezed so tight that you expect them to pop.

I think random thoughts at such times, like what do they do with women who have implants? Do they burst open like overripe pumpkins after Halloween?

When I could speak again, I asked Amy, the technician, who has a solid army background, by the way, how they do mammograms on women with fake mammaries.

She stopped tinkering with her equipment and actually looked at me for a second, a quick flick of the eyes, reminiscent of the way a fly swatter kills a fly.

"Do you have implants?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I was just wondering."

Amy sighed in exasperation. I often have that effect on people. "Then we don't need to be concerned with that," she said through her teeth.

Well, no. But I had waited a very long time in my little dressing gown, white waffle-pique, opens in the front, and now she was hurting me. I thought I was entitled to something in return.

"CAN you do mammograms on patients who have them?" I persisted. I was thinking maybe I should look into getting some if they serve as a get home free card. No more mammograms, ever, sounded really good at this point.

There is something fundamentally wrong with voluntarily handing over your body parts to be tortured, knowing in advance that you are walking into an ambush. She ignored me and pretended to be very engrossed in the picture on her screen.

"Can I see, too?" I asked.

She didn't respond so I walked across the room and looked at her monitor. My breast looked huge, which it isn't. The photo was not suitable for hanging in a machine shop, just plain bad lighting, and it was hard to imagine where a pasty would go.

She told me I would have to wait for the doctor. A half hour later, a woman came in and introduced herself as Dr. ----. Doctors rarely have first names, or else "Doctor" IS their first name and they had prescient parents.

The upshot was, she wasn't sure what she was seeing either. My earlier mammogram showed a large mass, but the ultra sound today showed a small one. The repeat mammogram was not discussed as apparently neither Dr. Doctor or Amy was able to read it.

So I have to go in a third time for a needle biopsy whenever the receptionist collects her messages and calls me back. I am not impressed with the quality of care I received today. And there is no decent shopping in that neighborhood for those seeking comfort and obliteration in retail therapy. Also, I have a headache. I think it's because they squeezed my chi chi's so tight my head burst.

As Hemingway said in "The Sun Also Rises," "It was a rotten way to be wounded." He was talking about balls, but it's a fair analogy, as nearly as I can imagine.

I don't think they do things like that to men. "Turn your head. Cough." Men are wimps.