My first experience getting a mammogram was just fine and a little weird
I travel 25 minutes to reach the hospital where I’ll receive the breast ultrasound I expected and the mammogram I did not. There’s some weirdness with my breasts, some discharge, and my doctors (and me) want to see what’s going on, like it’s no big deal probably but let’s check. I’m not really worried about the appointment — it’s like an extension of my annual doctor’s visit — but I carry a small pit of dread, along with my hand sanitizer, going anywhere beyond the two-mile radius of my home because of the pandemic, because of the sudden proximity to unknown humans. So I’m more annoyed at being stuck in a Lyft for 25 minutes with a driver who may or may not wear a mask properly, may or may not clear their throat or take a sip of water or talk to me or engage in any other typical human behavior which is now disgusting to do in front of strangers. I want to be ignored and transported to my destination as if I was a hunk of clay instead of a person.
At the hospital entrance, a friendly nurse/security guard, takes temperatures by forehead with a gizmo out of The Jetsons and hands out surgical masks to wear instead of cloth ones. You must wear a surgical mask in the hospital. There is no designated place to swap masks so I do it in the hallway, as people walk by, and I imagine tiny little germ particles — like that green emoji with the wibbly legs — zipping about in the air. It’s a little big for my face and keeps slipping. I find the elevators and find the office and check in and wait in a waiting room sparse of seats but for a few spaced six feet apart. I don’t mind this. I never want any stranger sitting right next to me in a hospital waiting room, or anywhere.
A fast-talking nurse hands me a burgundy smock and points out a private changing room and then a second waiting room I’m to go to once I swap tops. She mentions I will get a mammogram first, since they do mammograms and ultrasounds in cases like mine. She’s as nonchalant as if she’s telling me I’m getting a free side of fries. I thought I had a few years before I hit the milestone of First Mammogram, but accept what she says since I’m hungry for peace of mind.
I watch House Hunters in this little nook of a waiting room and waffle over what to do with my backpack. Put it on the floor or hold it on my lap? On my lap, stuffed with my laptop and bulky sweatshirt dress, it seems like a shield. But I don’t want anyone to think I’m hiding myself and therefore nervous about this appointment or embarrassed to be wearing this over-sized, horrendously wrinkled smock that could so easily slip from my shoulders to expose my tits to the women walking by. I make myself set the backpack on the floor.
A technician fetches me and shows me to a dark room down the hall. Her long graying blond hair swings in a ponytail. Her scrubs are lavender and her voice is loud. She directs me to the lone chair as she bustles around, asks me to verify my birth date and medical history. I stare at the huge Siemens machine across from me, remembering the few things I know about mammograms, from my mother. They are so cold and they squash your boobs.
I’m sure this obviously new machine with its digital screen and big font spelling out my name costs thousands and thousands of dollars, but it looks so simple. I could make a facsimile out of what I could find at home. There’s a metal slab that looks like an upside down shoe box and a thick plastic tray hovering over the slab mounted on legs like a sit-stand desk. The technician asks when my last period was, and I spend several minutes trying to remember dates. For a moment, all I know for certain is it’s December and there is something wrong in my breasts. I laugh at myself as I think aloud and try to remember and count backwards and she laughs. This feels a little more human.
She instructs me to stand by the machine and open the smock to expose my right breast first. She hoists it up like a handful of clay and places it on the metal slab. It’s cold but not that cold. She is very nice and apologetic as she touches my sides, my arms, adjusting me into unusual positions so she can get the angles of my body just right for the series of images. I barely register how close we are in this little room. During normal times we’d be breathing on each other. The clear plastic tray presses down on me. This does not hurt exactly, though the pressure of being fiercely sandwiched is unpleasant. This pressure is so targeted it feels almost like it is not happening to me at all, that I’m watching this happen from a viewing area and the ache I feel in my breast is empathy.
I look straight ahead. I followed the instructions to not wear deodorant, perfume, or powder, but I regret not giving my armpits a sponge bath. I haven’t bothered to shave in a while. I don’t detect any odors, but I don’t try to either. If I smelled anything, if I looked down and saw my breast stretched away from my ribs and mashed by a slab of plastic and my armpit hair licking away from my body I would feel immediate shame for possessing these gross parts.
“Don’t breathe, don’t move…” the technician chirps from her computer station.
I don’t move. This isn’t my body right now; these limbs, these breasts are not mine. I am as pliable as a doll.
She directs me to change sides: out comes the left, in goes the right. The magenta smock slips from my shoulder, and I consider dropping the whole thing to the floor. I appreciate the effort at comfort by modesty, but we are past the point of secrets.
After the mammogram, I’m whisked to the ultrasound room by a different technician with a jaunty dark ponytail. I lie down in this room, staring up at ceiling tiles overlaid with posters of trees like stained glass. All body parts are covered by the smock except one breast.
The technician squeezes very warm gel on my breast and presses the ultrasound device to me. Pressure, but mild compared to the mammogram. I gaze at the trees; my mind wanders. They must microwave the gel. I’m quiet and still like I’m getting a pedicure. The only sounds in the room are the hum of the machines and the technician occasionally tapping on a keyboard until she cheerfully tells me we’re all set and that the radiologist would be in momentarily to give me my results.
I wipe away the pools of gel with a rough towel. The radiologist strides in. She grabs my eyes with her intense blue ones and doesn’t let go. I wonder if this is a technique learned in a seminar. I know something is wrong. Her voice is equally intense as she says there is no cause for alarm but they want me back for a biopsy because of some debris in my left breast. Debris! Like wet leaves and fast food wrappers piled up in a gutter. How did it even get there?
I can’t process this as I’m whisked to the scheduler’s office — the fifth stop on the assembly line. I will be back in one week for a biopsy that will remove samples of the debris in order to learn if it’s benign or malignant. It’s probably nothing but let’s just check, they tell me.
I take a Lyft home. Tension creeps into my back and neck. I’m tired. I curl into my couch with a blanket and a mug of coffee and zone out in front of the TV. I hoped my breasts getting yanked around and covered in goo would function like an amulet against bad ailments. I’m not prepared to go back, to endure two more car rides with strangers, more pressing, more pressure, more technicians efficiently sweeping me from room to room, like a piece of meat on an assembly line.
But what other option is there? I’m a doll. I’m clay. I’m whatever you need me to be. Fix me.
I’m a researcher and usually write about how design and technology impact our everyday lives. Checkout my newsletter Humdrum for more of that, and to subscribe!
