Daily Diatribes

Last week I had an epiphany. I was aimlessly murdering fellow mobsters in Mafia Wars when I realized I wasn’t getting any younger. Idly, I clicked the “ATTACK” button again and again, letting my mind wander as I committed murderous mayhem in cyberspace. Something about ending the lives of “Letitia the Lefty” and “BALLZ” made me consider the fragility of my own life. Even though forty is the new twenty, I need to stay healthy. Preventive care is important to me. Just that week, I had been to see Dr. Renee to get a measles shot.
That’s right, I had to update my MMR. When I applied to college, I was supposed to submit proof of vaccination, only I never did because I thought they were kidding. Really…a blue card at my age?? Trust me, if I haven’t gotten a shot for it then it’s because I’ve actually HAD the disease. But turns out they were deadly serious and put a hold on my account. I couldn’t register for classes until I gave them that damn old blue card. Idiots.
Updating the vaccines made me uncomfortably aware of the fact that not only was I aging, I was not taking good care of myself. For example, at the beginning of the year, I lost twenty pounds and was looking really good. Then I started college and gained the Freshman Fifteen, only I’m a graduate student and I thought I was immune. Turns out even forty year olds can stress eat their way into plus size clothing. I was homesick alright; homesick for all those long, lovely mornings in my pajamas when I lounged around and did nothing in particular after the kids left for school. And apparently there’s no immunization for Lard Ass. Last week, I got on the WII Fit for the first time in months and the little guy on the screen only made me feel worse. He clapped his little cartoon hands to his little cartoon head and shrieked “Mom, YOU’RE OBESE,” shaking his head in disbelief. Asshole. At least I’m a REAL GIRL you cartoon freak!!!
I also realized I was overdue for my pap smear. Very overdue. In fact, I think Bush was still in office the last time I had one (and no Bush jokes, please, of any variety…) I decided right then and there to make an appointment. I whacked a final mobster, grabbed the phone book and made the call.
It’s Dr. Renee’s fault I was so overdue. Back in the day, when I was still young and carefree, I would go to Renee for my pap smears. Her office is easy to get in and out of and I never have to wait long. The staff loves me and will do anything for me. Unfortunately, once our relationship escalated from doctor/patient into a real friendship, I had to end the gynecological visits. There’s something not quite comfortable about eating lunch with someone who has been in your genitalia up to the elbow, palpating your uterus. I had to find a new doctor for that particular procedure and I hate using a gynecologist. Their offices are always located at the hospital in case some damn baby has to be born in the middle of my pap smear. I’m afraid I’ll be left hanging with my legs in the stirrups while the doctor rushes off to catch an infant  But I had no other choice so I reluctantly chose a gynecologist.
I figured it would be a couple of months before I could get an appointment. Those gynecologist types are always booked three months out and getting an appointment is nearly impossible. To my unpleasant surprise, however, she said “I have one slot left for next Monday….we’ll see you then!!” I hung up and realized I had cancer. It was too coincidental that I needed a pap smear and the very busy doctor’s office just HAPPENED to have a cancellation. When my kids came home, I hugged them hard; who knew how long I had?

So today was the big day. I shaved my legs and my armpits. I washed really well. I put on clean underwear and socks and my ‘going to the doctor’ outfit. Then I headed for the doctor’s office. Naturally, it’s located in an office tower next to the hospital. I parked in the parking deck and rode the elevator down to the crosswalk. I walked across, then took another elevator down. I walked outside, crossed a parking lot, entered another building and took another elevator up. Are you freakin’ kidding me??? It’s like they don’t want you to find the office!! Only those who are worthy and pass the test actually get a pap smear. Everyone else dies of ovarian cancer while they’re wandering around the parking deck.
Grimly, I rode up to the sixth floor, then stood outside her office for a moment. I almost turned back. Only pain and humiliation waited beyond the doors, but it was my fate. It was my duty to my children to get a pap smear so I could live to torment them another day. I opened the doors and went in, past the point of no return.

I signed in and they gave me a clipboard with some papers to fill out. I sat down and was happy to see an entire page of optional tests I could apply for.  I am a hypochondriac. I take medicine for it and it’s pretty well controlled, but when presented with a list of medical tests I could have performed on myself without even begging for them, I lost my head. Why yes, go ahead and check my cholesterol! Can’t be too careful these days. I’ve seen that commercial with the skinny chick who falls down on the red carpet; I wouldn’t want that to happen to me! Granted, I would probably be tripping over my own feet, not falling down because of high cholesterol, but you can’t be too careful these days! And go ahead and check a CBC. I have been feeling a little anemic lately, now that you mention it. What? You want to do a urinalysis too? Sure, why not? I have to pee anyway!! Stool sample for colon cancer?? Um, hell yes!! Ever hear of Katie Couric’s dead husband??? All told, I think I ran my bill up about $300.
Pretty soon, they called me back. I peed in the cup. I tipped the scale at fifteen pounds more than I did at my last visit. Then I got nekkid and sat down to wait. Pretty soon, the doctor arrived and told me to lie back and get comfy. The moment of reckoning had arrived. I scooted my butt back, put my feet in the stirrups and stared stoically at the ceiling, mentally preparing myself for the violation.
Then it happened. At the very moment she was invading my privacy, the exam room door opened. The nurse yelped and jumped over to shut it. “Who in the world was that?” asked the doctor.
“I don’t know,” the nurse said. “I was in a hurry to shut the door.” I tried to relax, but the mood was broken. Now I was hyper aware of the procedure. Just as she was violating another region (remember that stool check!!) the door opened….AGAIN!!
The nurse jumped over and shut it quickly. Turns out it was someone’s CHILD opening and shutting the door!! Which just goes to prove I can’t get privacy ANYWHERE!! I never go to the bathroom without someone popping their head in to see what I’m doing. Apparently all children everywhere feel comfortable barging in on me no matter what I am doing.  Such is the curse of motherhood.  I knew exactly who the child was; I had seen the mother in the waiting room  dealing with a three year old, a toddler and pregnant with another.  She looked white and tired and I felt sorry for her.  However, I dearly wished she could control her child a little better; having a pap smear is bad enough, but having someone else’s child interrupt it escalated it to a whole new level of uncomfortable.  My pity has a certain limits after all!

Finally the procedure was done and the doctor told me I could get dressed.  Before she left she asked “Have you had your mammogram yet this year?”

Um, that would be a negative, considering it had been over two years since I had  come in for a pap smear.  I shared that with her and she told me to make an appointment for one before I left.  I got dressed, walked down the hall to the appointment desk and asked for an appointment.

She clicked a few things on the computer, then said “Would you like to do it right now?”

I didn’t even think twice.  Everything else had already been violated, so why not go for the whole shebang?  “Let’s do it,” I said.

She asked me a couple of questions including “Do you have breast implants?”

I looked at her in disbelief and said drily “do you want me to take my shirt off and show you?  My nipples drag the floor.”

She absolutely howled with laughter.  Personally, I didn’t think it was all that funny, seeing as how I was dead serious, but if it brightened up her Monday and got me through the door more  quickly, so be it.  She told me how to get to the mammogram office and I was out the door, ready to get it over with.

Mammograms have been blogged about exhaustively.  There’s not much left to say about them.  Except that they are the most humiliating, uncomfortable life saving procedure a woman has to endure.  I stripped from the waist up.  Then I put on a paper gown that was supposed to make me feel more comfortable.  Since it flapped open in the front and I had to keep pulling it back up, it really didn’t achieve much.

The tech jacked up the mammogram machine as high as it would go.  I practically had to stand on my toes.  I thought my chin was going to be included in the film.  Then I had to stand perfectly still, boob smashed flat in a machine, dignity laid bare.  All things considered, it was less humiliating than the interrupted anal probe.  At least I have boobs to scan; she said some of the patients she sees really just get “nipple grams”.  I lack a lot in my life, but I don’t lack in that department.  See above comment.

Finally, I was free to go.  I got on the elevator, went down to the first floor, crossed the parking lot, rode the elevator to the walkway, walked across the walkway and took the elevator back up to the parking deck.  And got in my car and drove away.  I had a hairy moment at the exit when I got behind a car driven by a woman who had to have been at least 112.  She had to open her door and lean out to put money in the parking ticket machine because she had evidently walked past all 237 validating stations inside the hospital.  I waited for agonizingly long minutes as she fed first one and then two dollars into the slot.  The third one was limp and kept folding in half, flapping aimlessly in the wind.  She kept trying to force it back in, her liver spotted hand shaking ferociously.  Finally, I threw it in reverse, backed up, and got in the other lane.  I was gone before she ever managed to force single number three into the slot.

And just like that the yearly visit was over.  I had shared my cancer concern with the doctor and  just before she left, she winked and said “well, it all looked pretty good and I didn’t see any obvious signs of cancer.”  And she laughed a bit.  No one ever takes me seriously.  But the good news is I’m all caught up for a whole year.  All my orifices checked out!  I could have been abducted by aliens and been subjected to less probing.  The only difference is there should be no alien baby outcome after this visit.  And if there is….well, that just gives me something new to blog about!!