This afternoon, I accompanied Sophia to Cedars Sinai for her mammogram. There were six other women of varying ages in the waiting room. As I played "Virtual Darts" on my cellphone, Sophia talked with the other women.
One woman complained about how long it took for her to get an appointment. Another woman said she’d been waiting for two hours in the waiting room. Another joked that they make you wait for two hours in one waiting room, then they bring you inside to another waiting area, where you’re tricked into waiting another hour! — the same gimmick they use at Disneyland to make you feel like you’re moving in line at Space Mountain.
"And at least at Space Mountain, you don’t have to wear a smock that barely covers you," said the woman.
I probably shouldn’t have gotten involved in the conversation, but blogging has made me an ultra-curious person. I now talk to everyone, hoping to get a blog post out of it. I politely asked about the mammogram procedure — and everyone took turns telling me how painful it could be.
"They squeeze your breasts like they’re in a vise. Ouch, ouch!" said a third woman.
"I’m sure of one thing, said Sophia, "If there was such a thing as a penile-gram, and men had to have their penis squished flat every year, I’m sure medical science would have come up with a better machine ten years ago."
All the women nodded in agreement — and looked at me as if I were the enemy.
i certainly wouldn’t trade places with the procedures involved in checking for breast cancer, however, i would like to point out that no machine has yet been invented that has prevented my doctor from finger fucking me once a year to check for polyps.
LOL. And they were so right. You were standing in for ALL men.
Ignorance is bliss. I’ve come to believe in that. Strongly. I personally know of cases where the people with cancer were fit and fine efore finding out that they were sick. I guess its psychological but they went from healthy looking to very very sick looking in such a short time that its gets you to wonder whether they should never have known.
its necessary though, to have tests, in order to cure a disease right at the start when you have all the chances to get rid of it. But what if there are no chances at all? What finally kills you is being aware of just that, that your days are numbered.
Fitèna
Hang on Neil… didn;t you invent it? 😛
I have to agree with them. I had to have a mammogram, and I was like, “You’re flattening the girls to little pancakes!! Ouch!!!!!!” I simply cannot imagine men getting Mr. Happy squished like that. Just unimaginable.
Yeah, just wait until you have to have a colonoscopy.
interesting…i have yet to have a mammogram but i have made out with guys that squeeze them like they are in a vice, so i can sympathize.
Whatever, women probably did something to deserve the pain anyway.
(And now, for fear of my life, I’m kidding)
You were asking for it the minute you started asking questions.
Mammogram, shmammogram. They should be paying ME for pictures of my boobs.
Sad, but true.
Having had a mammogram at 21 and was only a C cup at the time, they were looking for a lump I had detected. Knowing, I did in fact have a lump, they squished me extra hard, and not in a good fun way either, left bruises. Big ‘ol bruises on the boobage.
No fun.
Pain.
Also, by calling it a ‘mammogram’ it makes it sound like you’re going to receive great news.
Like a telegram, happy-gram, stripper-gram.
But alas, no.
I had a great commment to write until I read Brando’s response. Now I can’t get that image out of my head. I’ll be useless for the rest of the day.
Truer words? Never spoken!
A friend of mine just mentioned that it gets easier as you get older – since the breasts tend to flatten and sag anyway. Yikes. Maybe women are evolving to become more adaptable for the mammogram machine…
Hell hath no fury like a woman swathed in backless crunchy paper.
*Give Sophia a standing ovation*
oh! i hate how they try to trick you at disneyland with their clever line manuevers. i won’t fall for it there and i won’t fall for it at the doctor’s office neither.
🙂 sizz
neil, “looked at you as though you
were the enemy?”
was that for “blog-effect?”
as i highly doubt it!
you strike me as personable and
thoughtful and anyone would pick
up on that….
smiles…
you have no breasts, you are the enemy!
Brando — at least you have a good doctor. My family doctor is so lazy, I’m always asking him if he wants me to undress so he can examine me, and he says, “No, you look healthy enough.”
Just Run — I know some day, I’ll need to get a prostate test. I can just imagine how unpleasant that will be. I’m hoping by that time that they will have invented a “pill” form of the test.
Better Safe — Actually, there is a small percentage of men who do get breast cancer — but I have no idea how they figure out who to test.
“Many people do not realize that men have breast tissue and that they can develop breast cancer. Until puberty, young boys and girls have a small amount of breast tissue consisting of a few ducts (tubular passages) located under the nipple and areola (area around the nipple). At puberty, a girl’s ovaries produce female hormones, causing breast ducts to grow, lobules (milk glands) to form at the ends of ducts, and the amount of stroma (fatty and connective tissue surrounding ducts and lobules) to increase. On the other hand, male hormones produced by the testicles prevent further growth of breast tissue. Men’s breast tissue contains ducts, but only a few if any lobules.”
You do know what that means? — we ALL have breast tissue. That means there should be no reason they shouldn’t make Redondo Beach into a topless beach, something I’ve been petitioning the city government to change for years.
One of the many blessings of getting my boobs done is that they can’t mash them down! I get to get thoroughly groped instead…
My wife went for one Tuesday. She and Sophia must be on the same mammocycle. No doubt great breasts think alike.
As an aside, didn’t Suzanne Summers once serve as a spokesperson for an invention that would allow women to “flatten” a man’s penis?
I believe it was called the Thighmaster.
You should have offered to give each woman an examination so she wouldn’t have to endure the painful procedure.
This is one thing I’m not looking forward to when I start to enter Shriv-dome….I don’t want my tits smooshed!
A little over a year ago, I posted this on my blog. Just to give you a rough idea of what the “manogram” might look like.
Fit̬na РYou actually expressed a thought that I have had many, may times.
And yes, I am up for one of those sometime in May.
Eew, Brandon said “finger fucking.”
I need to get on my knees and do a bit of Jolson ‘Mammy…. Mammmy, oh baby’
Sophia, how’re your results?
Oh, my, until now, the only blog post I’d read on mammograms was one that I wrote. It’s far more interesting to hear about it from a man’s perspective. I want to know why men don’t have to get mammograms, as men can get breast cancer.
Ok, maybe this is just me… for a man to bitch about a well lubed finger up his ass once a year is absurd considering about 85% of them are happy to slip a lubed or unlubed dick up a girls ass – and if he’s not a pitiful fuck his dick is bigger than a finger or two…
Whiners.
My wife is a breast cancer survivor, so she has been having mammograms since she was diagnosed four years ago at 36. And, she always wants me with her now, which I understand. But what disturbs me is the cartoon on the wall in the Mammogram room. It shows a man with his Johnson sandwiched beteween two meal plates (like a mammogram machine) and a terrified and pained look on his face. The caption reads, “Man-o-gram”. Yes Neil, in that office, you were the enemy.
LOL! Amen to that! Where’s the new machine for mammograms damn it!;-)
3T
That woman is nuts. Men would NOT complain if they had to have a Weiniegram; they’d be thrilled. Men leap at any chance to have their junk handled, and they’re not especially fussy about whether said junk is handled gingerly or with force. Just last night my husband demanded I give him a Weiniegram. He’s incredibly proactive about his health.
Melissa – Yay!!!!!
Let’s not forget the SPECUL, and the STIRRUPS, and the casual conversation one has to have while a fellow or gal is swabbing the entrance to your womb with a stiff brush, and taking a peek at your nether-manicure in the meanwhile.
I’d take a finger up the ass any day instead.
Oh, the carnival of mundane sent me here. Have to give them the props.