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My Madhouse with a Mammogram

8/30/2019

2 Comments

 
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     It’s smashing time, the annual ritual in which my twin orbs are pressed into pancakes and x-rayed, to be studied by a stranger.    
     And I’m a “call back,” one whose pictures weren’t “quite right,” so I’ve held my breath through another torturous compression. Now, I’m trapped in a waiting room. My choices here? To flip through a twenty-six-year-old magazine about houseplants (I’m not joking), or read an article about how supermodel Gisele Bündchen battled anxiety.
    
     Why would I be anxious?
    
     A cheery tech appears and announces the second shoot was “questionable.” I’m sent down the hall for an ultrasound where I’m introduced to a whirring machine named Unetixs. I wonder if this rhymes with “lunatics.” 
    
     Then I’m camped in another Hades waiting room. A Martha Stewart magazine from sixteen years ago tells me “100+ Ways to Get Festive” for Christmas - and it’s August.
    
     Am I going crazy?
    
     One wall of this room is painted green like overcooked peas, which matches my flap-open gown that I clutch to keep from exposing myself.
    
     Two hours have crawled by. I guess that’s why I’m called a “patient.”
    
     The doctor appears. He announces that my anomaly is my “new, best friend,” a water cyst. Nothing to worry about.
    
     I breathe again, dress, and walk out the automatic double doors, shaking my head. I know mammograms can save lives, but something about this process strikes me as inherently degrading, dehumanizing.
    
     So when I have the opportunity, how can I create an environment that showers sensitive dignity on others in their most vulnerable times?

2 Comments
Tutuapp link
11/27/2022 01:50:12 am

Any and every new source of information can help! Don't read a single how-to guide; using different learning styles to practice a skill can be even more helpful than using one method.

Reply
Kodi link
11/27/2022 01:50:55 am

This includes textbooks, online video tutorials, podcasts, blog posts, and movies.

Reply



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