Things I Live In Fear Of

Today I awoke in a great mood until I remembered what is happening this same day in a weeks time. The dreaded annual appointment to the boob doctor. I can't stand appointments of any kind being hairdresser, dentist, or gynaecologist. I am really impatient and fiddle, twitch and sweat until it's all over. I place the appointments in my calendar and try not to look at them till the last minute. Then I live in fear dreading the moment when I have to get into the car. I never go alone. I would never get there. So I always take my partner and he sits there embarrassed in front of the other ladies and their mammeries. It's the same with the gynaecologist. In the waiting room he looks all over the room except at the other ladies, pretending to be interested in the flyer's on the wall with pictures of happy people that contain information on herpes and erectile problems. When my appointment is called he sits politely, his hands in his lap, whilst I discuss all manner of girly, hormonal and period stuff. The female doctors think it's healthy to see a man attending the appointment with his partner and during one pap smear he was invited to have a look inside. In fact everyone including the student doctor was having a look and a discussion about my now not so private bits. And then there was the time we went together to the dentist for a double appointment. He was placed in the room beside mine which had an adjoining windowed door and at the crucial point when the dentist said "hmm you have a little cavity" my man chose to get up from his chair, bibby and all and make faces at me through the window like a naughty school boy making me laugh. But I haven't been to the dentist in a while now, telling myself my teeth are fine and brushing them twice sometimes three times a day.

The other thing that I have on my list to do is "you know what". "You know what" refers to the skin cancer doctor that comes to our local clinic every 2 weeks, and checks everyone for melanoma then burns them off with his trusty canister "just in case". In the past I have ended up with red burns on my arms and face for days. I keep being busy on those days - still am.

With haircuts I like to get in and get out as quick as possible. In my past full-time working life I would sit and wait for an hour on a Thursday night in some groovy salon in the QVB to get my tresses done. Then it was a further 2 hours in the chair of washing, painting, rinsing, cutting and drying amid the noise of hairdryers and women yelling over them. Sometimes I would leave the salon as they were rolling down their big doors for the night. That's why Just Cuts is great. I walk straight in to a chair and 15 minutes later I walk out with my cut.

But back to the boob doctor. He looks like a science professor with an edge, complete with spotted jaunty bow tie and round spectacles. He gets me into his office and in a posh voice asks me the same questions every year before sending me into his little side room to de-bra whilst he talks into a hand held tape recorder in a serious tone. In the side room is a bed and TV monitor, which he uses to see inside my breasts and checkout the cysts. I am full of cysts. That's what happens when you don't have kids. Your breasts look great and firm, only because the cysts keep them afloat. After this you are sent off for a mammogram where they squash your boobs between two bits of plastic, pray they don't pop out and quickly take an xray. Then finally you go to another room which is dark and you lay down and they draw all the inside of your boobs on a computer screen, measuring the size of each cyst. The woman in this room is usually chatty and stops at regular intervals to tell you about her sons misadventures when I just want to yell at her "shut up and get back to work" so I can get out of there and nurse my poor aching boobs. The whole thing takes 3 hours and costs me $450.00.

But what price is peace of mind.