2003-06-13 11:42 AM
Just Call Me "Lumpy"
My top birthday-related traumas:
- Finding my first gray hair, three days before my 29th birthday.
- Yesterday's doctor appointment, 5 days after my 34th.
- Turning 18 four days after an election, while a Republican friend
turned 18 a week before.
- Having two finals and a nasty paper due on my 19th birthday.
- Being dumped by ne'er-do-well quasi-boyfriends on my 15th birthday -- and
my 16th.
(I didn't have any major birthday party traumas as a kid -- how can you go wrong on the birthday party front, really, when the weather is always beautiful on your birthday? -- and most of my gift-related traumas were Christmas ones. Like the year Grandpa Dad got me an Easy Bake Oven, recommended for ages 7 and up, but told me I couldn't use it yet because I was only 6-1/2. Or the year Sweetcheeks got a Nintendo and wouldn't share it. When I asked for one of my own, my mother told me that he and I would "just have to work it out." Yeah, you try to reason with a little brother with a death grip on the controller. But I digress.)
So yesterday was the always-fun trip to the gynecologist. And after the doctor did his thing, he told me, "It may be that it's normal for you to have lots of lumps in your breasts. Especially if" -- and at this point I started whistling innocently and gazing at the ceiling -- "you shamelessly abuse caffeine. But it's probably a good idea for you to get a baseline mammogram. Here's the slip, here's how to get to Radiology, make an appointment for the middle of your cycle, etc etc etc."
No fair! I'm too young for a freakin' mammogram! Since they're generally not recommending baseline mammograms until a woman's at least 40 these days, I'd been banking on the intervening 6 years to produce a less sadistic means of checking. No dice.
It didn't help much that I seemed to be the only pre-menopausal woman ever to visit the radiology lab for mammograms, since the appointment nurse seemed confused that there might be timing issues involved.
I'm old, I'm old, I'm so goddamned old.