Mammogram Day

In honor of my annual mammogram scheduled for this afternoon, here's a little humor

This first piece came in an email. I have found it on the internet in a dozen places, it is not credited to any author that I can find.

Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test! Best of all, these simple exercises can be done at home.

Exercise 1: Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in the door. Have one of your strongest friends slam the door shut and lean on it for good measure. Hold that position for 5 seconds. Repeat with other breast.

Exercise 2: Visit your garage at 3am when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Remove your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back up the car until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat for the other breast.

Exercise 3: Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Ask the stranger to smash the bookends together as hard as they can. Set an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.You are now properly prepared!

I found the following story here.

POWER OUTAGE DURING A MAMMOGRAM:

I actually kept my mammogram appointment. I was met with, "Hi! I'm Belinda!" This perky clipboard carrier smiled from ear to ear, tilted her head to one side and crooned, "All I need you to do is step into this room right here, strip to the waist, then slip on this gown. Everything clear? I'm thinking, "Belinda, try decaf. This ain't rocket science." Belinda skipped away to prepare the chamber of horrors.

With the right side finished, Belinda flipped me (literally) to the left and said, "Hmmmm. Can you stand on your tippy toes and lean in a tad so we can get everything?' Fine, I answered. I was freezing, bruised, and out of air, so why not use the remaining circulation in my legs and neck and finish me off?

My body was in a holding pattern that defied gravity (with my other boob wedged between those two 4 inch pieces of square glass) when we heard, then felt a zap! Complete darkness and the power went off! "Oh, maintenance is working. Bet they hit a snag." Belinda headed for the door. "Excuse me! You're not leaving me in this vise alone are you?" I shouted. Belinda kept going and said, "Oh, you fussy puppy...the door's wide open so you'll have the emergency hall lights. I'll be right back."Before I could shout "NOOOO!" she disappeared.

And that's exactly how Bubba and Earl, maintenance men extraordinaire, found me, half-naked and part of me dangling from the Jaws of Life and the other part smashed between glass! ! After exchanging polite "Hi, how's it going" type greetings, Bubba (or possibly Earl) asked, to my utter disbelief, if I knew the power was off. Trying to disguise my hysteria, I replied with as much calmness as possible "Uh, yes, yes I did thanks."

"You bet, take care" Bubba replied and waved good-bye as though I'd been standing in the line at the grocery store. Two hours later, Belinda breezes in wearing a sheepish grin and making no attempt to suppress her amusement, she said, "Oh I am sooo sorry!" The power came back on and I totally forgot about you! And silly me, I went to lunch. Are we upset?" And that, Your Honor, is exactly how her head ended up between the clamps....

And last from this site:

I'd marked it as "Fun Day at the O.K. Corral" on my calendar. Time for my annual mammogram. Whooppee. The only thing that terrorized me more was when I erroneously received an envelope which stated that my pregnancy tests results were enclosed. (I'd just celebrated my 61ST birthday.)

On this cloudy winter day a few months ago, I pasted on a fake happy face and headed to 1600 Sadistic Street where the brick fortress known as Mammograms R Us thrust out its jagged tentacles and grabbed unsuspecting damsels who drove innocently by in their Volvos. I shrunk to half my height as I dragged my terrified self from my car into the sterile, impersonal building. In the waiting room, hiding behind dog-eared copies of the outdated and improbable Field and Stream Magazine, trembling women of every age waited for their names to blast out over the speaker system summoning them to the Execution chamber.

After three hours, fourteen minutes and six seconds (but who was counting?), I was dragged kicking and screaming through a door marked Thugs Only into a meat freezer with the temperature set at 160 degrees below zero. Nurse Ratchett appeared, demanded that I disrobe, and handed me an 8 inch blue paper handkerchief with a string to cover my entire goose-bumped, freezing body.

She left me alone for 45 minutes while I peeled ice chunks off my arms and tied my jaw shut to keep from chattering all my teeth loose. Finally, I was led into the mammography chamber and forced to stand without my paper handkerchief in front of a tall, imposing metal drill press with a brass name plate carefully inscribed: Patented in 1939 by Adolph Hitler. Nurse Ratchett placed my frozen left breast on the drill press and lowered a 40 inch metal steam roller to flatten it to a pita pocket size. I was left trapped in this position screaming, passing out and invoking the wrath of God on her while she casually smoked a cigarette in the back room for 30 minutes.

Finally, she emerged from her break and snapped a picture of me in my agony which appeared the following month in Torture Magazine with an accompanying article, "How To Turn Innocent Women Into Raving Maniacs For Fun and Profit." Nurse Ratchet scooped up my unconscious, limp body from the floor, still attached by one
flattened piece of breast to the menacing metal drill press above.

She repeated the procedure on the right breast while my 986-decibel screams were fed into a Sony S-116 recording device to be used to incite warring tribes of New Guinea to riot. This time she only spent 20 minutes smoking a cigarette before she pressed the button to take a color photo of my breast.

The procedure completed, I was led without my blue paper handkerchief covering to an ice-covered plastic chair in the freezer locker. I tried not to misinterpret Nurse Ratchet's announcement to a passing nurse, "OMIGOSH, can you believe these test results?" The last thing I remember before fainting again were these comforting words: "We thought we might have to repeat your test but we don't. You're fine." Plunk.

So my agenda for the day is: 9:30 AM yearly gynocology exam (I could tell a few jokes here too!); 10:30 AM annual checkup with my Primary Care Physician; 3:00 Mammogram! 5:30 fellowship dinner at church. So say a little prayer for me today!