In Which I Get My First Mammogram

I wrote this 3 years ago, as a fresh 40 year-old, before being diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer...

I eat poke for lunch. A favorite of mine. I sit across from my husband and reflect on how I’m feeling as our second son prepares to begin middle school this fall. Just that morning, I had dropped my boy off at the middle school sporting blue trim and roughcast exterior walls. I was proud of how bravely he faced the student tour in unfamiliar surroundings without any of his 5^th grade classmates to back him up.

He came out all smiles and excitement. At first, I joined in, but then the questions and hesitations began to pull on my heartstrings. So, there were tears.

And then I drove myself to my first mammogram.

It’s been crying a lot here in Oregon. Like the whole sky. All gray all the time with lots of rain and wind and even some snow this week.

The receptionist is very professional, and her routine statements strike me as a living recording. She’s said them so many times in just the same way. I feel not quite seen.

She directs me to have a seat on the side of the lobby where Ratatouille is playing—an odd choice of movie, I think, for a Medical Imaging Center. I choose the high sided red faux leather chair, still warm from the previous woman who is now having her mammogram done.

I’m so tired, that I close my eyes to wait, thinking of this strange place where no one dwells, but we all are passing through, existing together in this awkward room. It reminds me of a memoir I once read about waiting rooms and the liminal places of society.

My name is soon called, and a softer, more human woman guides me to what looks like a women’s locker room at a spa. I’m in Door #7. I see a mirror with a light, a bench, two lockers with blue tagged keys hanging in their respective places. She gives her instructions to take off my shirt and bra, clean off my deodorant with the wipes provided, and put on the blue half hospital gown with the opening in the front. I can tell she’s recited her lines hundreds of times, but yet, there is a humanity to them. I can’t retain what she’s saying as everything is new and I don’t remember, do I take the locker key with me?

I pose for a selfie in the mirror to remember this moment later on and then sit down on one of the two chairs outside the x-ray rooms. The waiting area has laminated breast exam cards for the shower as well as information for those battling cancer. I think of those I know fighting cancer and try to imagine what they must think and feel as they sit on these very chairs. Will the test show the cancer is gone? Has grown? Is shrinking?

Another woman in a blue hospital shirt is led by the technician back to her changing stall. And the commonality I share with this woman—a total stranger—is not lost on me. We are both women. We are both here for the same test because we both have female bodies.

I’m called back to the black, dark room where the white robot-like x-ray stands. The tech tells me soothingly and specifically what to do, guiding me with her words, her hands, even her whole self. She massages the tissue onto the platform and pushes my hair behind my shoulders. I’m told to look to the side as the clear plastic clamp squeezes down and my face is pressed against it in a undignified pose. Then she tells me I can’t even breathe. I must hold my breath to be even further disembodied than I already am. And yet, it is solely my body that is the reason I am here. I look at the pink duct tape against the black wall, sure that it is placed there so women like me will have something to focus on as we hold our breaths. And I think of them. All the women whose bodies are a vulnerability. A great treasure, to be sure, but also a liability.

For the second part of the x-ray, I’m told to give a side hug to the machine. And then she gives me the most awkward hug as she positions my body just-so on the machine. I think, “Who would sign up to hug half-naked women in this way all day every day?”

And yet, I’m so thankful she’s willing.

She spends her days helping women and offering a bit of gentleness during a most dehumanizing procedure.

After all the pulling, and tugging, and side-hugging, I return to my locker room and cry. I watch the tears escape my blue eyes in the mirror and tell myself, “You’re doing it. You’re being 40.” There are many things I’ve done with my body—monthly cycles, pap smears, four pregnancies, four deliveries, breastfeeding, etc. And now there’s one more item on the list. I know it won’t be the last.

I’m proud of myself. Just like I’m proud of my son for doing hard middle school things, I’m proud of myself for doing hard middle-age things.

As I relay my experience to my husband, he gently offers that perhaps the technician has lost someone she loves to breast cancer?

And I think about that.