I just got off the phone after begging for a mammogram appointment. K, listening, could not believe that a person would plead to have such a procedure. Neither could I.
Why, we wonder, is this such a difficult thing? Because I am not permitted to have this procedure twice within a calendar year. Specifically, one year + one day must separate the two appointments.
The first year that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer -- so that would be, I guess, 1996 -- Sibs said that from now on, we were getting the best mammograms money could buy. We went together, to the fancy-shmancy new Breast Institute at Hackensack Hospital (yes, I live near Hackensack, NJ, we know it's a funny name.) This place was really wonderful: individual attention, terry-cloth robes as we waited in our individual rooms with recliners to be called in for the horrible test, a doctor read the results right away and then told us. Very very nice. We had both been going every year before that, but this was like making it to the major leagues. We needed specific doctor's recommendations to be seen there.
Cut to two years later, and my how our little clinic has grown. There we are, the two of us, in our robes, but sitting side by side on a bench with a few other ladies in waiting. For one reason or another -- I think Sibs had to have a cyst removed -- or appointments got separated then, and we each started going alone, and she, later in the summer. Going first thing in July was just the right thing for teachers, but now she was off-schedule.
One year in June I thought I felt a lump (it was nothing) and went to a couple of doctors and then had my gram early. At that point my new gynocologist suggested that I develop "a personal relationship with a breast surgeon", mostly to make sure that all my lumps and bumps were nothing, and that I saw the same doctor each year when I went in. But now I have to wait an hour or more, undress in a closet, and sit in a paper robe in a big waiting room. I love my doctor, but boy, have things changed. And here we are.
For one reason or another, over the last few years, my appointment keeps getting pushed farther and farther back. I called in June and got an appointment for the last week in August, when the lovely breast surgeon (whom I swear is 12 years old) will be there. They called today to tell me that she'll be on vacation that week, so can I come in September?
No. Thank you. I'll be working in September. And by the way, sending off one of my children to live on Europe on the date they had in mind.
I'm so pissed off. I finally gave in and rescheduled for October sometime. Next year, November. Then December. And so on and so on and so on.
Now in truth, I get less panicked over these things than anyone else I know. I never expect them to find anything; I'm not generally scared, although we all know what it feels like and nobody likes it. Anyway, I'd rather have a mammogram than a colonoscopy and the day of preparation that requires. But here are the essential words in this diary entry:
"my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer"
Really, how can they justify delaying me just a little bit more every year? My mother had her second-to-last mammogram 11 months before she was diagnosed.
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I'm watching Seinfeld on tape
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