Flattened!

.It's strange.

Despite my inherent hypochondria, I am always reluctant to pay a visit to the doctor.

This, in spite of the fact that I have a not very secret yearning to be one.

It is also why (to the chagrain of my daughter Skye), I insist on dropping into every possible conversation the fact that she is one of these learned professionals.

Every suspect ache and pain, seems to me a sign of imminent doom, and since a visit to the doctor may confirm the awful suspicion, they are best avoided.

Instead, once a lengthy period of time has lapsed, I can feel comforted by the belief that the insistent ache is nothing sinister after all, or less comfortably, become even more frightened at the thought that it is now too late to heal!


And so, suitably alarmed by the knowledge that a close friend's early diagnosis led to a very thankful outcome, and at her behest, I took myself off for a mamogram this week!

Nothing could have prepared me for the traumatic assault.

Joanne, the radiographer seemed intent on reducing my much admired cleavage to a pan caked version of its former self.

The evil contraption used to achieve this goal, seemed to be a relic from a medieval chamber of horrors.

Naturally I was quick to voice my contempt for the mechanised weapon, and shrieked with panic at Joanne everytime she operated its vicelike grip on my chests.

My rather generous breasts have ably nourished my four children, and still managed to survive this with some rather admirable bouyancy intact, but all that may well have been undone by the relentlessly squashing mamogram.

Later, as Dr Bell perused the landscape of my breasts on the ultrasound machine, and having assured me of their perfect health, I asked Joanne if I had been really badly behaved.

'Can I be honest?' she asked with an air of resignation, and before I could answer, 'You were the worst I've ever had!'

I still feel traumatised.

And I suspect that if it was a man's appendages being so mercilesslysqueezed, they'd have come up with a kinder alternative already!


xxx elle