Mammogram 2009

Carolyn B Healy

4:23 am

Fear penetrates my dream – trapped in a warehouse with endless stairs and no door. I awake with sweaty palms and dread. Dream fades. Whew. Reality invades. Shit. Mammogram Day.

6:00 am

Shower, no deodorant.

6:25am

Check email. Do not make To Do list for day, just in case.

6:45 am

Take two Extra-Strength Tylenol. Ha! Outwit the flesh-squeezing bastards.

7:00 am

Remove envelope of old films from closet shelf, safer at my house ever since the year they misplaced (and eventually found) them, making it all worse. Do not look at them.

7:05 am

Drive. Park.

7:10 am

Take elevator to 4th floor. Enter office. Go to bathroom. Complete paperwork. Pretend to watch Good Morning America present the various tragedies that occurred overnight while I thought only of myself. Go to bathroom again.

7:25 am

Follow receptionist to changing room. Choose locker # 11. Strip to waist, don enormous pink-flowered flannel gown with many strings. Wrap tight. Sit in waiting room. More Good Morning America. Maintain cocktail party-style chit chat with other patients. Do not mention that we are all in the Diagnostic Mammogram wing for some good reason, not downstairs in Routine Mammogram.

7:35 am

Experience strange calm, proving once again that reality in the moment is easier to handle than the anticipation of it.

7:40 am

Follow smiling harmless-looking tech into her chamber. Small, blonde, young, dressed in green print lab wear; efficient, informative, apologetic, low key, all you could ask for.

7:45 am

Begin on right side. Take arm out of sleeve. Step forward. Stare through blinds as a woman closes her car door, walks away, approaches building, turns around, returns to car for a forgotten bag, repeats.

7:53 am

Follow directions. Stand here. Lean in. Hold this bar. Relax the shoulder. Sorry. Hold breath. Switch to left side.

8:04 am

Almost done. Just the magnified ones of the incision site to go.

8:08 am

Return to waiting room. Wait. Wait longer. Fight off growing conviction that something is wrong.

8:18 am

Large woman enters, comments to no one in particular that she hasn’t had one of these things in years. Say something encouraging. Look away. Read magazine.

8:20 am

Watch interview with Bernie Madoff’s longtime assistant who had no idea anything was wrong. Believed him. Needed job.

8:23 am

Imagine B. Madoff’s male parts compressed between the clear plastic paddles of the mammogram equipment. Would that be torture? Would that be a problem?

8:25 am

Tech returns at last, asks me to follow her into changing room. Oh no – why can’t she tell me out here?

Tech: It was fine.
Me: What a relief. Now, why didn’t I just say Good? Why reveal my private torment?
Tech: Here’s your paperwork. We’ll see you next year.
Me: Yes. Good. Recall that in previous years they’d given out a carnation to commemorate a good outcome. Budget cuts no doubt. The year it wasn’t okay I can’t remember much, which is just as well. There was no flower, that’s for sure.
Tech: Do you want to wait for your films?
Me: Yes. Thanks.

8:30 am

Dress, return key. Smile. Exhale. Sit in waiting room away from TV. Study other patients. Wonder about percentages: How many get bad news: One in three? Ten? Two hundred?

8:32 am

Check Blackberry. Read notice of Elizabeth Edwards on book tour. Think about timing: mine early, Stage 0; hers late, too late. Think of her children, so young.

8:35 am

Make list for the day: Breakfast out, Drop off donations to resale shop, Clean patio furniture, Buy plants. Appreciate.

8:45 am

Descend in elevator, films in hand. Escape. Dial the important people. Celebrate another whole beautiful year.

CBH 06/09