Breast Laid Plans

Saturday, I had to drive over to Bill-Paying town for a yearly mammogram. It's not high on the list of things I enjoy, but since I'm retired, it's not like I have any other pressing engagements. I was instructed to arrive 15 minutes early. The drive takes me 45 minutes if I don't get behind a tractor or a bicycle road race or encounter construction slowdowns. I also allow time to stop by the bathroom before checking in, because you never know how long you'll have to wait after arriving early.

The volunteer greeter at the hospital information desk was excessively cheerful and perky. I guess she's retired, too! She reminded me of Joyce Bulifant, the 1970s perky actress. The minute I stepped through the sliding-doors, she hollered joyfully across the lobby, "HOW CAN I HELP YOU?"

"Well...I was planning to go to the bathroom first..."

"Oh! Well. Go ahead!"

So glad I had her permission. I went past the desk and did my business, then came back. She directed me to sit in the arrangement of chairs I had just walked past twice. A man soon arrived and asked for Vee. Not really. But it wasn't exactly Val. He used a diminutive form of my real name, not the official legal one that is on all my hospital and doctor nurse practitioner records. So I wasn't sure he was talking to me. It's like somebody named Joseph getting up when they called for Joe. It's probably the right person, but possibly not. I asked to make sure, and went with him to his cubicle.

Once my information was updated, cubicle man called a volunteer to take me back to the mammogram waiting area. They've changed it since "updating" the hospital. It used to be an L-shaped kind of suite. I am not a fan of progress. There used to be a little waiting room, with a changing room adjoining it. You were let in to change right before your appointment, told to go into the adjoining-to-it mammo machine room when you were ready, and leave your stuff in that changing room. The door to the waiting room was locked, so that no one else was getting into the changing room until you were dressed, and left through the waiting room. Easy peasy. The only problem being that one time the fire alarm went off while I was changing (what are the odds of THAT?) and I had to go out in the hall until they made sure it was just a drill.

Anyhoo...NOW there is a different waiting room, with the entrance on a different hall. The volunteer told me as we entered the empty waiting room, "Here's the waiting room. Men come in here too." Then she took me to the adjoining changing room, told me to change, and GO SIT IN THE WAITING ROOM! How jacked-up is THAT? "You should put on one of these. And if you don't feel comfortable, you can also put on one of these." She first pointed to the patterned white-and-floral bat-wing kind of shawl thingy with snaps down the front. About as long as a football half-shirt jersey. That's what you wear during the mammogram, and they flap part of it over your shoulder for maximum exposure while squeezing the goods between two slabs of plexiglass. She next pointed to a pink kind of short-sleeved scrub shirt that wrapped around with no snaps, and had a tie like a martial-arts robe.

I figured if I was covered up with that scrub shirt, it wouldn't matter if I had on the bat-wings thingy. The technician would just tell me to take my arm out of the sleeve, and I'd be exposed as much at the other garb would allow. No way was I going out in a waiting room where MEN might be, wearing only that bat-wing thingy. And why should I have to double-up on my exam clothing?

Seriously, guys! How about if you were going to have a prostate exam, and the doc wanted you all read for easy access when you entered the exam room? So the worker who led you to the changing room gave you a little loincloth to wear, and told you that you might be sitting in the waiting room with women? Okay. You'd probably like that exposure. But I, for one, do not.

Anyhoo...I was sitting in the waiting room, all undressed/dressed, at 9:45. Early, you know, for my 10:00 appointment. At 10:00, another lady was shown in, taken into the dressing room. The volunteer dropped her paperwork through a mail slot in the wall under the TV. New Patient came out wearing both exam garments, and made small talk. At 10:10, the mammogram technician came out of the mammo machine room. She looked right at me, and then said, "Her time was actually scheduled before yours." How she knew who I was, and who the other lady was, and which of us arrived first...I don't know. Unless there's a hidden camera watching the waiting room.

"Okay. That's fine." I knew I was early. No big deal. Even though I was there before the LATE New Patient, who obviously arrived 15 minutes after her appointment time. Still. Nobody made me get there early. And what else was I going to tell that technician? Something like, "Fie on you, you boob-squeezing tyrant!" Nope. I was okay with waiting. Maybe she really took that New Patient ahead of me because SHE was wearing both of the proper shirts, and had put her own clothing in the see-through plastic bag, while I had stuffed mine into my movie theater purse, having first removed the shaker of 3-year-old fake butter flavoring at home.

I was finally called in at 10:25, where the mammo tech ignored me momentarily to sit at her desk behind the machine, saying, "I'm transferring your records from the old system to the new one. That's why I'm running behind." Uh huh. Because ever since that hospital was eaten up by a big conglomerate, it makes sense to pay mammogram technician wages for data entry work.

Anyhoo...the actual exam only took about 10 minutes, and it didn't matter one whit which of the provided clothing I wore. I'm just sayin'...you men should resist the urge to invade the mammogram waiting room.