Yesterday I shared about switching veterinarians to avoid having to drive out of our own county to get shots for our dogs. Mammograms, though, still require a drive. We don’t have a mammography facility in our county.
So once a year, I drive a half hour one county to our south and plop the girls on the cold machine to be pressed flat like hot paninis in an iron press at 90 and 45 degree angles – top to bottom and side to side -and imaged for a health inspection. And the drive isn’t bad. It’s not all that ironic that I drive across two large hills to get there, and one is so tall that no one on a cell phone can get over it without dropping the call. I park and enter the hospital, where I already have my driver’s license and insurance card in hand for the paperwork. I get my plastic ID bracelet and then go down to Radiation and Imaging, where I check in and change into a flowery cape that opens in the front.
When I’m changed, I step into the next room for the procedure. This is the reason I always switch to decaf coffee two weeks before coming, and the reason I take Evening Primrose – – to lessen the pain of the fibrocystic tissue that is aggravated by caffeine and eased by the primrose capsules.
I always leave wanting pancakes after this procedure, simply because that’s what comes to mind. I think that IHOP should e-hop on board and partner with preventive breast screening marketing by giving women a free pancake breakfast once a year after enduring the double-digit pounds of compression. Surely they could come up with a new pancake to help support breast cancer research. We could scan our hospital bracelets for the free pancakes and sit in silence, sopping them around in the syrup as we recover from the stress of it all, sipping decaf.
Have you had your mammogram this year? If not, it’s time to schedule it!
Common Threads 