Mammogram

Perfunctory. Or maybe the opposite of.

Mammograms: You go into a small room and a complete stranger takes your breasts and slides them between cold glass plates, where they are first vised, then X-rayed. Before this there are questions to answer: family history of breast cancer? When did you get you first period? Do you have children? Did you breast-feed them? Necessary to know, but intimate. Standing there, shirtless, you feel naked in every way.

It’s perfunctory, up to a point. Like a regular diagnostic visit, in that room with the big machine and the total stranger that you basically tell the timeline and even detailed narrative of your body to, relative to your breasts. Though, speaking of relative, your relatives’ bodies’ stories are your body’s, too. I have to think how old my aunts were when they got their breast cancer diagnoses, but knowing how old my daughter was requires no thought at all. I find myself choking up but the technician doesn’t notice. She just asks me to hold the metal bar and stop breathing so she can take the image. Are you doing okay? she asks, and you know what she means, so you say yes.

Then, you’re done. It’s cold in the little room, and it’s good to put your shirt and sweater back on. It’s all very clinical and efficient, and you are grateful for the technology and the no-nonsense technician.

Yesterday, after my mammogram, I walked to my car thinking that wasn’t so terrible. But the truth is, there were moments, having nothing to do with the cold room or panini-ing of my breasts; moments where being me, a woman, a niece, and most especially, a mother, that were.