Italy Diary: My First Mammogram
/… In which Zeneba relates her first mammogram in our new country… A piece of real life in Italy.
Today I had my first mammogram here in Italy. I despise going to the doctor. Since I have been here, I have not even met my primary care physician! I have not had cause to.
Very fortunately, I am able to contact my doctor via WhatsApp, so I can write her a message in Italian and just wait for a text response. This is a huge plus for me because it really helps eliminate any misunderstandings.
I am not sure where my deep abiding hatred of doctor’s appointments comes from, but here is a short list of things I would rather do than go to any type of medical appointment:
-Clean up cat barf after they ate 6 tacos
-Shop for Christmas presents on Christmas Eve in the Mall of America
-Remove one of my own teeth with a wrench
-Drink a Zima
-Play Beethoven 6 with all the repeats, with my least favorite conductor, who always reminded us that Beethoven was deaf, in case we forgot
-Try tuna and butterscotch flavor Activia yogurt
So I was dreading this appointment today, to say the least. A friend called me last week to nag me, until my ears were bleeding, to get a mammogram. Before we left the US in November 2019 Matt and I both had every orifice and crevice poked and prodded by every type of medical professional, just so we could blow off doing it here until we got more comfortable. But Covid and procrastination have made me continue to blow off all kinds of things, like my first dental appointment, and first haircut… and first mammogram.
But my friend was insistent, so I sucked it up and WhatsApped my doctor, who sent me a prescription via email in about 30 minutes. Then I went down to the pharmacy to make an appointment. To my surprise they offered me an appointment that same day! But I took the next available, which was just 36 hours later.
The appointment was scheduled much faster than I anticipated, so I just didn’t have time to ask my female friends here about what to expect.
At 8:20 this morning I went to the building my prescription referred me to. There was no one on the ground floor, but I could hear talking upstairs so I went up there. One woman, another patient, was in the waiting room, and she told me I needed to fill out a form. I didn’t have a pen so she lent me one. I started to sweat through my shirt because I wasn’t sure I understood the form and I always panic about not knowing enough stuff.
A few other women came in, and then a nurse popped her head in and said something. No one responded, then she repeated herself, and I realized that that was some kind of version of my name, so I got up and followed her. Spoiler alert: If you are nervous about your language ability, it makes you extra nervous when you don’t recognize your own name - either of them, when they are repeated.
The exam room was just through a door. There was no changing room, or a locker to keep my stuff, like I experienced at mammogram facilities back in the US. There was no robe, or soft lighting, or Enya playing, or potpourri, or framed photos of seaside locations and kittens. The attitude is more like “let’s just get this over with”.
I couldn’t agree more. When people are poking and needling and shoving and fingering and whatever else they are doing in any doctor’s appointment, I just want to get it the hell over with. I don’t need to talk about my feelings and I don’t need a cookie. Just do it already. Damn.
This mammogram was a little different. I did the usual exam, but they didn’t like the looks of something on the screen, so I had to do another, and then after that, do an ultrasound. Meanwhile a doctor and nurse were talking it over, in rapid Italian, with me in the room, while I stood naked from the waist up. This would be unthinkable in my experience in the US, but I really appreciate the matter-of-fact nature people have here about their bodies. In the US we spend a ton of time worrying about ever exposing a tiny bit of skin to anyone, unless it is absolutely magazine-ready, in any location — doctor’s appointment, beach, whatever. Italians, in my estimation, seem to have much less ingrained shame in their bodies in general than we do as Americans. Take a trip to the beach to see what I mean. Women and girls from ages 8-80 are wearing bikinis and no one gives a shit.
Ultimately it was all fine, but I will admit that the process was intimidating. I am a violinist, not a doctor, so I don’t understand a lot of medical terms and processes, even in English. You can damn well bet I don’t understand them in Italian. Having to go and get a couple of extra tests was, as Americans would say, not awesome.
“Do you have a CD?” the doctor asked me, as she looked over my initial photos.
I was sure I heard her correctly, and then she repeated it, and I was sure it was correct, but that made no sense. I mean, yes, I DO have a CD — four, in fact, they are life’s work! But since they are classical music CDs they probably sold 100 copies total, so I am sure she didn’t mean that. (I learned afterward that what she meant was the CD-ROM pictured, which was given to me immediately after the exam. It is the images of my mammogram, with the results, in CD form, for me to keep. She was asking if I had the same thing from a previous screening.)
So they gave me a clean bill of health, gave me this CD with these awesome boob shots, and I got it all on the same day - no waiting for days or weeks for the appointment or the result like in the US. On my way out, I asked if I needed to stop at the cashier and pay. I thought the answer was probably no, but I don’t want to do anything wrong, so I asked anyway. They dismissed me, as if I had said something meaningless like “I like to play the guitar”.
Anyway: That thing I said about not needing a cookie…? I take that back.