Hell's Gatekeeper...AKA... The Mammogram Technician.

It was a s sunny day and I was feeling pretty good. I made it to the hospital on time and was able to eat before I went in because guess what? No blood work today. It was a good day, birds were chirping I was whizzing through my appointments. I was happy.

I was a little apprehensive when I headed to the Ambulatory building for the mammogram. There are stories, what a novice considers folk lore, personal accounts of sissies. Everyone tells you, oh it hurts. They never really go into detail, the most I have even gotten from someone is they flatten your boob in this machine and it hurts. Ok, so I am thinking piece of cake. I am a well endowed woman in the boob department so I figured how bad could it be. Well I am here to tell you it BAAAAD!

So I pull up the this amazing ambulatory hospital and straight to the free valet. I am greeting by a dashing young man with a big smile who has no idea of the fate that awaits me, or does he???? I get my ticket, grab my bag and coffee and I am off an hour early to my mammogram appointment. The brand new breast center is impressive. Cherry wood accents, flat screen tvs for your enjoyment and the most comfortable seating made for hospital design. I sign in and pass over my paperwork explaining I know I am early but I was told to take a chance incase someone cancelled. The elderly woman was nice and warm, directing me to the waiting area to be processed.

I am then called up to the desk to be entered into the system, name...address....phone number. The same spiel over and over. I then sit back down and before I can get comfortable a cherub like woman calls my name. Tiny little angel like lady just as nice as can be....Humph! She takes me to a set of very nice dressing rooms and tells me to take off my shirt an bra and put on the gown, opening to the front and wait there until the technician comes to get me.

A few minutes later there is a soft knock on the door and I open it eager to get this thing over with. I am greeted by a beautiful young technician, just as happy as she can be. I will now refer to her as the gate keeper. In hind sight, she was probably a demon. You know they always shape shift into beautiful people and why not? We step into a large room with the usual mammogram equipment, which by the way seems un- threatening and harmless. I have a new name for the machine that x-rays your breasts...Weapon of Mass Destruction...get it "mass", they are looking for a mass in your breast. Oh forget it as I laugh to myself because I think it is brilliant!

I step up to this contraption and the Gate Keeper begins to tell me what we are going to do here. As I follow her instructions and she helps me maneuver my boob...awkward....she is happy with the placement and presses down on the foot pedal that controls the clear plastic thingamabob, as I will now refer to as "Boob Crusher", onto my breast. It moves at a slow and unthreatening pace until it has my boob in an uncomfortable pancake like position. Here's when it gets ugly because just as you are thinking I can deal with this, it's about a nano second, she presses it down more. WHABAM! You just went from pancake to crepe.

Ok how can I describe this pain? Well, at this point I yelled OUCH!!!!!!!!!! This was all I could muster with the last bit of air I had left to breath. My right foot was no longer able to stay flat on the floor, no matter how many times she said it had to be and I could not stop talking. I was saying the strangest things like "Who in the hell would make a machine like this? Why? Why? Why does it need to hurt so much...it's an x-ray for crying out loud?! If there was something in there I think you just killed it! What the HELL? OUUCCCHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! then she comes over and lifts the boob crusher. I am sure at this point the look on my face would scare the average person. I know this because people tell me I look evil all the time. Let's not forget she is a DEMON and my looks mean nothing to her. I DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO THIS GATE KEEPER DEMON B*&%$! I no longer want to answer her stupid questions about the kidney donation. DONT TALK TO ME...WE ARE NOT FRIENDS!!!!! I HATE YOU!!!! DIE DEMON DIIIEEEEEE!!!!!

Ok now she tilts the machine while saying, because this is my first mammogram there is a chance I may be called back to do it again. I politely responded, that's not going to happen so I suggest you get it right the first time. Well this pissed the DEMON off and the tilt-o-boob x-ray hurt even more than the flatten boob crepe one did. At one point it felt as though my boob was being ripped off my body. let's clear this up for those that do not have boobs and will never have to endure this level of pain. On a scale from 1-10, 1 being a pluck from a rubber band and 10 being...oh let's say, having your eyeballs yanked out of your body...I would give the mammogram a 7.

I understand that most of us do not know what it feels like to have our eyeballs yanked out, but I am sure we can imagine it to be the worst pain imaginable. Moving along, I take several more x-rays. Then there is one where she lowers it and I am thinking oh thank god this one doesn't hurt as much and she waits and extra two seconds more and then BAM, she hits the pedal again. I looked at her thinking, Evil has a face and it's yours DEMON!

Finally, I can leave. I run for the dressing room change as fast as I can. I swing open the dressing room door ready to bolt and who is standing there...the Cherub. I recently saw a show about angels and demons and how some of these little cherub things were not as nice as we think they are. Well here is one of the evil ones standing in the way of my freedom! She ever so sweetly hands me a rose, I wanted to beat her with it. I took the rose mumbling under my breath about how they could take this rose and shove it up their.....and then she moves out of the doorway and gestures me to leave. So I ran for my life!

Ladies if you have to endure this primitive torture chamber to appease some masochistic doctor and prove you are cancer free.....smoke a doobie, take a pill, do what ever you can to numb yourself before you get there. Make sure you are good and high when you step through the gates of hell because you will need to be.

*The mammogram came back clean, no masses or questionable spots....thank God!