Among the life experiences I’ve somehow missed is having a mammogram. I have always had excellent reasons for this:

1. I’m too busy.
2. Breast cancer doesn’t run in my family.
3. I haven’t noticed any problems.
4. I’m a sniveling yellow-bellied medical coward. And, finally. . .
5. As was fondly described by my bridge club partners through the years, I wanted to avoid the experience of having a refrigerator door slammed shut on my boobs.

Recently, one of my daughters casually mentioned that she had an appointment for a mammogram the next day. I was shocked. My child was facing the crisis I had spent 89 years cleverly and successfully avoiding. What could I possibly say? “Go for it, girl!” would have to be followed by “Quick, head for the hills!”

Obviously, I should have pretended to be an adult and congratulated her on her wisdom in taking care of her health and getting scheduled for such a preventive test. A test, however, where some evil brute was going to viciously slam a refrigerator door shut on her boobs. And if he did, her mother would have to show up there and break both his legs.

I know. I know what you’re thinking and I agree with you entirely. Either my brain is the size of a sesame seed, or my maturity level got arrested somewhere back in Kindergarten. Or maybe at the bridge table.

My arrested development may partly explain why I never had a mammogram. Even during the ten years I was pregnant, no doctor ever suggested I should have one. It just never came up. For many years, I thought it was because – size-wise – they were waiting till I grew out of my training bra. Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to inquire about or volunteer for any sadistic procedures featuring a refrigerator door and sensitive mammary glands, specifically, not mine.

In the olden days when you went to the doctor, you used to have to take off your clothes. Not any more though. Today, all you have to do is hand the lab tech a little bottle of your urine, and then they proceed – hopefully after washing their hands – to start sucking your blood out. This is followed in darkened rooms where penetrating deadly radiating beams are focused on your selected organs creating images which you may not want to feature on Facebook. Apparently, all this information is carefully stored in one of their popular refrigerators or possibly forwarded to your doctor for pasting into his treasured memories album.

If the doctor ever does ask you to take off your clothes, it’s very serious. If it happens, you can be sure of two things:

1. You’re about to be sexually assaulted, or,
2. The doctor has reason to believe that you have an incurable disease, and he has to go in to visually ascertain whether you have any body parts worth salvaging for the organ bank.

Going to the doctor was never one of my more popular activities. Once I wasn’t harvesting a new baby every year, there didn’t seem to be any good reason to keep showing up for medical appointments. It seemed like a good way to stay out of trouble and to avoid having a you-know-what-which-starts-with-the-letter-M.

In 1989, I was getting ready to retire from my job at Children’s Hospital to start up a video business. I was getting the worrisome notion that before my medical insurance expired, maybe I’d better schedule a tune-up at Group Health. That way, if I needed any expensive repairs, maybe they wouldn’t result in my husband and me spending our retirement in a donated yurt, dining on gruel and moldy bread.

Unfortunately, right after I scheduled the appointment, I got a heart-stopping letter in the mail. The first of several. From Group Health. Letting me know that they were engaged in a national study for breast cancer, and they would like all their women members of a certain age – to participate. And each letter started out, “Dear Mrs. Ford.” Not “Dear Member.” Not “Dear Subscriber”. In other words, THEY KNEW WHO I WAS. THEY KNEW MY NAME.

The timing was terrible. Having been identified, they must also know I was coming in there for an appointment. I was trapped. They wanted to study my knockers! Using, no doubt, unbridled employment of the M-word technology.

By the day of the appointment, I was a train-wreck. I have no idea how I managed to arrive at the doctor’s office, or, for that matter, exactly how the appointment transpired, but the following is what I remember.

After the nurse recorded my body heat with her thermometer, she permanently disabled her blood pressure apparatus by pumping up the cuff on my quivering arm. Of course, it had gone into systolic range shock! What else could you expect of a terror-stricken victim who was about to become a test subject of breast cancer research?

Finally, the doctor entered the room. By then, I think I was managing to convey an attitude of casual nonchalance — at least, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t sucking my thumb.

Right off the bat, the doctor announced: “Mrs. Ford, I’m happy to be your physician, but in the future, I urge you to come in for your checkups oftener than every 15 years. Do you think you can do that?”

“Well, sure!”, I said, smoothly. (I’ve always been a fluent liar.} “Are we done yet?”

Well, she wasn’t. Following the sticking of the thing in my ears, knocking on my back like someone would be answering the door, and then listening intently to my innards with her stethoscope, she said, “Now, I’ll do a pap smear.”

Oh, no! I had forgotten about pap smears. It was just as barbarian and ignominious as ever, but expedited by the handcuffs and four-point restraints the nurse used to shackle me to the table.

After she completed the procedure, the doctor said she wanted to take my blood pressure again to see if it was still high as when I first arrived for the visit. She asked if I was just understandably nervous seeing a doctor after such such a long stretch of time. I decided I’d better make a clean breast of it (you should pardon the expression).

“Well, no, Doctor”, I said. I’m just worried about having to be in the breast cancer research study.”

“Really?” said the doctor. “But they wouldn’t even accept you for the study!”

What did she just say? They wouldn’t accept me? I wasn’t acceptable???

I stammered, “But they sent me letters. They said they want Group Health women members between the ages of 59 and 64 years old to participate.”

“That’s correct”, said the doctor. “But they wouldn’t accept you into the study because your mother didn’t have breast cancer and because you had so many pregnancies. It’s possible that women like you who had ten pregnancies may be less susceptible to breast cancer.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “You mean I’d be rejected?”,,

I should have been relieved but it really kind of hurt my feelings. I was offended. They didn’t think I was acceptable. I wasn’t WANTED, and look here, everybody wants to be WANTED. (Well, maybe not on-the-lam bank robbers or ax murderers). They didn’t think I was GOOD ENOUGH for their study. How could they be so unkind? How would YOU feel about it?

Well, anyway, that’s how it happened that I never had a mammogram.

As a Reject of a breast cancer research study, my advice may not be something you’re holding your breath to hear, but I’m offering it anyway. Here goes:

In case you’re the owner of female type bazongas, and you want to steer clear of getting breast cancer, take one or more of the following actions:

• 1. Avoid getting born to a mother who plans to get breast cancer.
• 2. Get pregnant as many times as you possibly can. This will qualify you for permanent residence at the nearest funny farm and will spare you the wear and tear of having to raise all the children you produce. (You’ll be kept under restraints, of course.)
• 3. Grow up and do what your doctor tells you to do. If he or she tells you to get a mammogram, DO IT FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE. PLEASE. And all the other stuff they tell you!

Safe Boating is no accident!