ONCE A YEAR

As responsible adults we are to submit our bodies to a yearly exam. Probably most people don’t. And the reason they don’t can range from money to no medical insurance to fear of what may be found to just plain fear of doctors. Generally, women go in more often because they need birth control pill prescriptions refilled and unless you go in for your yearly exam, there will be no refills. The exam itself is an invasion of all the insecurities a woman has ever had about her body. There just isn’t any way to take samples for the dreaded PAP smear without inflicting some degree of pain. And then there is the dreaded mammogram, that all women hate. To get the best x-ray pictures, you must endure this painful process yearly after age forty. Let’s not forget the blood samples taken with long needles that make you cringe just to look at them. Even having your blood pressure taken can hurt a little, but then isn’t that what this appointment is all about—PAIN? These days, test results take only a few days. Most of us tend to not think about it and assume everything will be alright, but yet we all breathe a sigh of relief when the results are favorable. The doctor only calls if it is bad news, so when the doctor leaves a message for you to call him back, the panic sets in. When doctors call at the end of the day and are out of the office the next day, the panic grows to the point that dying from breast cancer or cervical cancer becomes a high possibility of the near future. And it would definitely be a bleak future. It becomes time to take a good look at cemetery plots and all that goes with them. Three days later, a call from the doctor reveals the bad news. It was the thyroid blood test that was abnormal which raised a few questions, requiring another test. This was supposedly good news. Not dying yet, anyway. Just more tests, more pain, more waiting and more uncertainty. Ultimately, in the end, every day we are still alive is a good day!