The Mammogram

The doctor felt my little lump, which was now the size of a small shelled almond (which felt more like a cantaloupe to me). Two days later I was at St Joseph Hospital, scheduled for my diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound.

Now for those of you who have never had a mammogram I must say it is a little daunting (and no it does not hurt or at least it did not hurt me). You are asked to remove your clothing from the waist up and to put on one of those attractive little cotton hospital gowns. No deodorant or antiperspirant, because it can create flecks on the mammogram image.

Here is the delicate description of a mammogram. You step up to a machine that has two horizontal plates (for lack of a better description) at about chest height. The plates can be adjusted to the height of the patient (I have included a photo of a mammography machine - they all look a little different but this gives you the general idea).

Your breast is situated on the lower plate, then the upper plate (which is clear) is lowered onto your breast, squeezing your breast against the lower plate to flatten your breast as much as possible. The flattening of the breast tissue allows the technician to get a clear image of the breast tissue (an x-ray). The picture is snapped and the machine automatically releases pressure. The process is repeated on the other breast and then they do it all over again, except the plates are vertical. Very simple, quick and rather uneventful.

Here is my version of the mammogram. I get undressed and immediately start to sweat. Remember no antiperspirant. Before I step up to the machine I am sweating so hard I am starting worry that if there is any electricity involved I could get electrocuted due to an electrical - water (sweat) contact. The technician hands me a tissue to dry off a bit (this is one those hospital size tissue that are about size of your palm). I need about half a box to successfully dry off. The technician then takes my breast and places it on the lower plate. Now these people are really amazing because if they think there is breast tissue on your back it is in that machine (technically your breast tissue is from your collar bone, to lower rib and goes around your side and up under your arm). This process is really a feat of acrobatics.

The plates are lowered and you watch as your (in my case a 36 DD) is flattened to thickness of a pancake and looks freaking enormous. You are pinned in the machine.

The technician tells you not to move. I am thinking – I am trapped in a mammogram machine and could not move if my life depended on it. Then the crazy thoughts run through my mind: What would I do if there was a fire? Will my breast stay this shape? Crap I am sweating so hard I think I am slipping out the machine and she will have to do this all over again. Where are those darn tissues?

"Help, I am trapped in a mammogram machine and can't get up."

Within a couple of minutes is all over. She asks me to wait while she checks the film to make sure the images came out clear.

A moment later she returns, can see that I want to know what she has seen and that I am full of anxiety, which I thought I was hiding miraculously well until I just about faint. Yes, I just about pass out. Now wouldn’t that be a pretty picture - lying on the floor, in my glamorous cotton hospital gown, flattened pancake boobs, in a pool of sweat. Arg. She immediately recognizes the signs that I am about to go and she hands me a cup of water and gets me to put my head between my knees for a moment. I regain my composure another moment later (if composure is actually possible in a hospital gown).

She leads me into another room, where I can lay down for my ultra sound. The room is cold but I am sweating like I am in Tahiti.