Thursday, July 5, 2007

She was gonna deny me a Mammogram because I'm "too young!"

This next part of my story I will be truthful, although I’ve teetered on whether or not to play this up a bit. I’d like to say that I handled this the way people would expect me to handle it, and gave this secretary a piece of my mind, but I never did and I’ve had ample opportunity to. Sorry, getting ahead of myself. As I stood there waiting to be acknowledged by one of the 2 receptionists in the mammogram office, annoyance already building before words were even exchanged, the one on my left held out her hand for the paper I was holding. She looked at it and –finally- looked at me. She asked my birth date, I told her and she starting counting out my age when the other receptionist stated to her that I was 29 but in my 30th year. The one holding my paper stated loudly and full of annoyance and more than just a little irritation, they would do the ultrasound but couldn’t give me a mammogram as you need to be 30 in order to get that. I stared back at her blankly, kept my about-to-bubble-over emotions in check, dutifully bit the inside of my mouth as I always do when trying either not to cry or not to blow a gasket on someone and retorted back that she was holding the paper with my doctors signature and what did she want me to do about it? Now visibly irritated, she muttered about calling the doctor and got on the phone. My doctor picked up and I heard the receptionist tell her how she should know they didn’t do mammograms on people so young! I also heard my doctor tell her in a raised tone that I had liquid leaking from my nipple and they had the paper with her signature and I’d like to think I heard something to the effect of “so schedule the mammogram #*&%^!” Fine, I didn't hear that last part, but whatever she did say had its effect. My now infamous receptionist dutifully went into the back, talked to someone, and came back and booked me for an appointment the very next business day, crossing off the poor mammogram technician’s break.

1 comment:

Laura said...

This sucks!

I found your blog while looking for info for a friend, but I've been there. Thankfully, I don't have cancer, but I've had a few lumps over the years and have been on the "you're too young" merry go round. My friend is in a similar position now.

Hope you're well and thanks for sharing your experience.