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Let’s be adult about this. It’s a touchy subject. Today, I got my first mammogram ever. I’m only about 15 years late. I know better. Afterall, if you’ve been reading this site, you know that I have a history of dealing with cancer. It felt good to be in denial. When I was truly young, I was too busy.
Then, when I was the devastation that cancer could bring, I was too scared.   My corporate health care plan is about to run out and I’m going on Cobra. While my daughter and I will technically still have health care, I will technically be paying for it, every month—hundreds of dollars—$790 to be specific.  So while I’m still on the corporate plan, I thought I should dive in to the inevitable and start the inevitable check ups. My doctor told me women are better than men about pursuing our health care because we are socialized to get annual exams. The routine of getting a pap smear at least gets us through the door. Men, however, wait to get symptoms. The breast exam area at UCLA is in the basement. The changing room is decorated with warm woods and a locker system that reminds me of a spa. There are two other women waiting with me. One is elderly, heavy set and mobile only with a walker. The other is young, pale and quite thin. There is silence. No eye contact. No smiles that you might see at, say the eye doctor or dentist between strangers.  There is a question in the air: Do I have cancer?  Wasn’t it a wonder as a child to go to the doctor and get poked and prodded, asked a few questions, be given a lollipop and sent on our way? I long for those days again when routine exams were just that; routine.