my nurse practitioner gives me a stern “mom” look.
When was the last time you had a mammogram?
I think I had one last week, I say breezily.
Really? She looks surprised.
What kind of a doctor is she?
She can’t tell that I am kidding?
Categories:
mammogram, me,
Form: Free verse
While waiting for my mammogram,
A most annoying test,
I had a thought no poetry
Has up to now addressed.
About the ones whose job is
Squeezing every woman’s breast
And manipulating angles
‘Til it’s properly finessed.
With each mammary maneuver,
Getting patients more distressed,
She keeps kneading and adjusting,
Like a potter who’s possessed.
What a way to make a living!
Though it’s time that I confessed
That I feel much better getting
These reproaches off my chest.
Categories:
mammogram, health,
Form: Rhyme
I have no idea how long it has been since I have been here.
A couple of years? I guess.
Try eleven, the nurse tells me.
She is wearing little pink mounds on her scrubs; cute!
Is that bad?
It’s not good, the nurse says sternly.
She squeezes me up into tiny plastic boxes.
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Now hold your breath.
BRRRR BRRRR BRRRR
Okay, I will have to take a look at these before you can get dressed.
I don't care; I get dressed anyway. I am one of "those".
She comes back in and shakes her head.
You need to come back every other year, she tells me in a bit of a huff.
I was glad she said that.
I put it into my memory bank.
Intending to take it out in ten years or so.
Categories:
mammogram, humorous,
Form: Light Verse
Mammogram central
They are asking me questions
I have no answers
Where did I have my last mammogram?
I thought I had it here
The last one they can find was 12 years ago
I am unconcerned
My breast looks like it is healing
I feel good
Even though they squeezed my girls
Scrunched up into old men
in a tiny plastic box
No way to treat my 44D’s
Categories:
mammogram, woman, women,
Form: Free verse
Ode To A Mammogram
Checking the calendar for appointments to be made
I come across a giant circle that I placed there yearly
take another day off work and dress for the parade
I’ve lost a list of many friends who I loved so dearly
a simple test they could have had to keep them all well
a large machine, a simple shot, the picture reads so clearly
The murmur of the lowering platform with silent ringing bells
a gentle tug, a shiftless stance, a long, long, holding breath
I wait while pictures are reviewed, some to dense to tell.
Another form, another mashing, another brush with death
why worry about what we don’t know, it just leads to strife
Shocking news, another mass, but we can get that depth
Somewhere someone has lost a mother, a sister, a wife
All women should take the time to save their own life.
Not in Ode format, so I put it in as free verse.
Categories:
mammogram, women,
Form: Free verse
A mammogram’s not what gals cherish.
The pressure is truly nightmarish.
But what if the guys
unbuttoned their flies
and felt the same squeeze… they would perish.
Categories:
mammogram, humorous,
Form: Limerick
MAMMOGRAM
The doctor sent me for a mammogram
He said it was the right thing to do.
'It's only a simple little check-up,
Making sure all's clear with you'.
Not aware of what lay ahead,
I was in for a dreadful shock.
The nurse said to take off my bra,
Then plopped my boob on a block.
Another block came crashing down,
Which squashed my right boob flat.
Oh such pain and the agony,
As on that block my boob sat.
I was told to stay very still,
But I nearly fainted with pain.
Now once this is over, that's it,
I'll never come back here again.
The right side has been completed,
My left one had still to go through.
Nurse said I must return yearly,
But I thought 'I've got news for you'.
When finishing that cruel ordeal
I needed to calm down a bit
One thing that really works for me,
Is to have a chocolate hit
It is the best food invented;
Endorphins released to the brain.
What a blessed relief I found,
Its calming effects do contain.
My boobs were bruised black and blue,
I needed to wear a binder.
I'll not go near that vice again,
Not for all the tea in China!
Copyright © Vivien Wade 2014
Categories:
mammogram, health,
Form: Rhyme
In the waiting room …
A sea of ashen faces
Women with their partners
We were waiting, just waiting
My name is called
Heart pounding I gather by belonging
My husband gets up …
But he’s told he can’t come in with me
I feel vulnerable and alone
In the little cubicle I undress and put a hospital cape on
Now its time for my mammogram
The machine clamps me tight with a vice like grip
Yes it Shrove Tuesday and is Pancake Day for my right breast!
Thankfully it’s all over very quickly
I sit alone in the waiting area
Waiting, just waiting
Try to do a puzzle but my mind is elsewhere
A door opens and my name is called
Now for the ultrasound
A blob of cooling gel, the scan is painless
Everything looks fine
They tell me I have ‘young breasts’ whatever that means!
Shame about the rest of me I quip and we laugh
Now I need to see the specialist to be examined
So it’s back to the waiting area
Waiting, just waiting
I get called into another room
Mmmm he’s very attractive with brown eyes and greying hair
But I digress!
A quick examination and everything is fine
This time my lump is tissue and is deemed to be benign
02~28~17
Categories:
mammogram, body, health, humorous, me,
Form: Free verse
She stood there
humiliated,
nearly naked
as a
stranger
touched her.
She was
searching for
something
she could not see,
she could not feel:
A silent killer,
a raper of
self-esteem,
identity,
womanhood.
She endured it,
the pain,
the embarrassment,
because
her mother
had died
and she would
survive.
Categories:
mammogram, daughter, hope, mother,
Form: Narrative
That mammogram! That mammogram!
I do not like that mammogram!
Would you like it on a couch?
I think that I would still say ouch!
Would you like it with champagne?
I think that I would still complain.
I do not like that mammogram.
I’d rather eat green eggs and ham.
Would you like it with no squeeze?
I think I’d still be ill at ease.
Would you like it fully dressed?
That I think would be the best.
That mammogram! That mammogram!
I do not like that mammogram!
What, then, would you most prefer?
Maybe others would concur.
If I could have a cute masseuse
Who sounded just like Dr. Seuss,
Perhaps that yearly mammogram
Would not be such a cruel exam.
Then I would like it on a couch
And wouldn’t act like such a grouch;
And I would like it with champagne,
Ignoring that annoying pain.
I would enjoy my mammogram.
I’d be as happy as a clam;
But ‘til that time, I will protest
Each time that tech does squish my breast!
Categories:
mammogram, health, parody, , cute,
Form: Rhyme
I never go to the doctor, I never am that ill
But once a year regardless, I go in for my big thrill.
As a bigger breasted woman, a mammogram I must receive
Each and every year and so I've come to believe
It's a punishment for those endowed designed by those who are not.
And in this terrible vise my poor breasts are then caught.
Once they were shapely and perky until this yearly ordeal began.
Now they've changed their shape, like pancakes in a pan.
I'm sure it's not my age that has made them change this way.
Unfortunately this squashed remodel seems to be here to stay.
for Carolyns Dr. Phobia Quick Contest
p.s. I hope it makes you laugh.
Categories:
mammogram, health
Form: Rhyme
Women over fifty
need to have a mammogram yearly,
It is an important test
that involves squeezing a woman's breast.
It is for cancer screening
but leaves some women really screaming,
Place your breast on machine which
clamps down on it like a fish sandwich.
Then it's tender to the touch
not many women like this too much,
I do believe it's a man
who invented this type of torture plan.
Why don't they screen men this way
put their member on this thing I say,
Then prostate cancer will flee
I'm just laughing at this imagery!
Categories:
mammogram, funny, women, women, cancer,
Form: Burlesque