pink ribbons etc

I saw my obgyn today (and if you are one of my male offspring that -if not the picture-should be your first clue to STOP reading NOW). It was for my "annual". Only they insisted I was last there in '08. Obviously they are sloppy record keepers since I was thinking I might have rushed this appointment and not be due back yet. Naturally they ordered a mammogram. Now on this one I had to concede it had been awhile. By which I mean, OK maybe a decade. But alot had happened in the last decade so it's understandable. Still I decided to not even wait to get home to call and make a date. This became involved. The imaging "center" wanted my old images and they weren't in their computer. I was not enjoying having to emphasize it was well maybe 10 years ago -could even be a little more.

You want I should cut to the punchline? The archivist found them in the soon to be purged shelf dated 1995. No computer record existed since they didn't even have computers back then (I am being funnny -of course they had computers -but they were hand crank models). Archival.

And why was I in a hurry to see the obgyn anyway? Because 1) I wanted replacement therapy -whatever it is I'm missing please replace. I'd looked over the newest flip flop and figured I had 10 more years to get benefits from estrogen and it's little helpers. There's a certain piquancy to age being the big new modifying factor since that was part of my dissetation theme. I could have told them. In fact pretty much any female could have told them that age changes everything. And 2) a public service annoucement about breast exams reminded me it probably was time. First I'd giggled when the very sincere sounding female voice said it was important to "feel your breasts often" -I'm very mature about these things. But they got me because she went on to say you should look for other signs like puckers, oragen peel rashes, etc and (I quote) slash your breast. I was so busy trying to protectively throw my arm across my chest (while driving so it wasn't easy) that it took a few moments for the next words, cancer risks, to sink in. Still it did remind me that it's slashing I want to avoid.