The Mammogram - A Misogynist's Playdough Machine?

So off to that most hallowed suburb East Melbourne, I head. But not this time to the G to watch those Bluies try for more traction this season, nor to the Rod Laver Arena for our yearly pilgrimage for world class tennis and not-so-world-class but corporate sponsored wine.

Into a well proportioned and well built  but anonymous building I go. Having submitted the first of what will be at least 3 million forms with my name, date of birth, and address (and should the treatment prove unsuccessful, only one of these key details will change anyway - so why I ask you?) I then sit in the ubiquitous waiting room with others waiting this or some form of testing.

Is it not enough that these Medical Imaging companies force you to sit in uncomfortable seats in ugly waiting rooms with bad art, where to kill precious time you flick through old magazines that would have you believe that really bad perms are still de rigeur? No. In your most vulnerable state they subject you to all this ugliness but even that is not enough. They have an enormous TV screen that seems to have sucked the colour from all the waiting room patients and redirected that colour onto a nuclear coloured "Ellen" and her stupid stupid guests banging on about some 'weight loss journey' and then doing a badly executed jig.

So like the local deli, my number is called and off I trot to the room. A brisk and friendly registered nurse (as it should be) runs me through the process. Throw on the robe, leave my gear over there. Stand and wait. Ms Minogue, this is a new maching, two of us will be with you today as I am learning how to drive this. Apparently it takes pictures, films, whatever,  from all cross sections of the breast enabling a more complete assessment. The science or mathematics is lost on me. No problem.

Now it may be a new machine wherein a barrel section of this large machine turns and snaps the boob at creative angles. Nonetheless, the basics remain the same. They take your lovely (and for me fortunately, ample-ish bosom) and pull it onto an innocent looking glass plate. The fact that it is still attached to the rest of your skin near your rib cage seems to escape the nurse's attention. She is determined to get as much of my non-stretchy bosom onto that plate as is possible. I have not had kids, I have not breast fed. All things considered, my breasts are reasonably buoyant and dont take too kindly to being manipulated like a piece of pizza dough. The nurse positions you as close as possible to said plate, drapes your plated boob arm around the machin in some kind of weird loving embrace  and then with a swift foot, pushes the descending plate glass down onto your Bosom Entree and squishes it til it resemblems something akin to a very wide piece of homemade pasta!!!!!! It isnt pleasant.

I am pretty sure that if the penis required some medical imaging test, the machine that was designed to do this would not be like the one they use for breasts.

She takes the odd few pics and then proceeds to do same with the other breast. The two nurses partake in a conflab, consult with the doctor to see if more images are required, come back and then tell me I am good to go. And then I head for the ultra sound. Along the corridor in my unflattering robe I head. Fluorescent lights make me feel both a little queasy but also more tellingly, slightly vulnerable. I hate their harshness, they make me feel exposed and drained of all naural colour and spirit.  I wait in a nasty little cubicle awaiting the ultrasound. Some 20 minutes later into a darkened room I venture. Up on the bed couch I hop. A Radiologist I presume performs the ultra sound. She does not tell what she is doing or why. Apparently us mere mortals dont need to be told. So I ask and she is disconcerted.

She spends quite a bit of time locating then entering data. The gel is warm. The process is very easy. She  sends the films to the doctor, tells me to wait to see if more is required, comes back and says I am good to go. I pay a king's ransom and I leave. Tomorrow I head to the GP to find out the results.

As I leave, I can see into the waiting room. Ellen is again doing her stupid dance.

Smile for the Camera.

Kelly