In Which Gladys Goes Animal Style

Today I’m going to talk about me. Me in the first person. Me in the here and now. I know you are thrilled aren’t you? Okay so here is the deal I am going to see a breast specialist today. No I know Kahuna is a breast specialist but I’m seeing one with a bunch of letters behind his name. How does one become a breast specialist? Does one raise one’s hand during medical school when the instructor says “who wants to share their goals?” Does the geekiest intern who never had a date raise his hand and snicker “I want to work with boobs!” The instructor then says “well that is wonderful. So you are going to work for the government in health-care?” The geeky soon-to-be doctor snickers again and says “no, I mean breastestth. You know mammaries.” Snicker snicker. Then next thing you know old Jed’s a millionaire, oh wait wrong song.


This is not the first breast specialist I’ve seen. You see back in the summer I had a smashogram that was abnormal. Now I don’t know who this Abby Normal person is but I wish she would leave my boobs alone. The imaging center had a coronary then called me back and asked for another smooshing session which I did. This one came back even less than normal. I tried to tell them that I am not normal, have never been normal and don’t think it is even possible for me to be normal. Helloooo! I was found under a rock! How un-normal is that? The imaging center didn’t want to hear my story of being found under a rock and sent me back to see Dr. Wonderful. She, who never gets her panties in a wad, started fidgeting and tugging and evidently had put her thong on backwards that day because she threw me out of her office and on the road to a “breast specialist”.

I arrived at a very plush and opulent physician’s office and was ushered in pictures of my boobs in hand to an exam room. There they threw me on the table and smooshed my boobs around some more. I tried to tell the “breast specialist” that I was found under a rock. That the mass they were seeing was probably just a peach pit or possibly the root of the 17 foot hair growing from my left nipple. Okay stopped giggling like a twelve year old, nipple is just a word. STOP IT! NIPPLE NIPPLE NIPPLE! There did you get it out yet? Wait I haven’t. Okay, I’m better now. The B.S. and the R.N. talked about my lady hangers as if I wasn’t there. They tisked and the tasked and then they had me get dressed. B.S. looks me in the eye and says “You must have a sterotropic biopsy, right away! First an MRI then a biopsy and then a mastectomy” I heard “Blah, blah, blah, stereophonic, blah, blah, right away after you stop and get a In and Out burger and a cup of coffee.” So I repeated this back to the B.S. who sighed heavily and spoke to me as if I were a two year old. “No, I said you must have blah blah blah…” I shook my head yes and started to go to the front counter and pay my bazillion dollars for this great advice.

My eyes were glazed over and my checkbook was open. That is when the office manager asked me what type of insurance I had. I stuttered and stammered and said “I don’t have insurance. I am a victim of a misdiagnosis and since some doctor said I was a dwarf, who obviously I’m not, I can not get insurance.” That is when I heard the squeal and the screech of my health care coming to a sudden and horrific halt. The B.S. stopped order issuing about scheduling my MRI and my stereophonic In and Out Burger. She looked at me and said “You don’t have insurance?” I weakly smiled and said “no.” This is when she shook my hand, wished me luck and scooted me out the door. “Wait, I screamed” as I was being pushed to the parking lot “what about my stereophonic In and Out burger? What about the peach pit I my left boob? What about the seventeen foot long hair growing from my nipple?” The doctor smiled and said “sorry, I can’t help you” and then giggled like a twelve year old boy and exclaimed “she said nipple!”

I crawled into my car and explained the whole scenario to Kahuna who sat mouth agape in horror and frustration. I mean how were we going to get a stereophonic In and Out burger now? What IS a stereophonic In and Out Burger and how does it determine breast cancer? We drove back to Dr. Wonderful and asked for her advice. She laid her hands on me and she said “here do this Emotional Freedom Technique. Tap here and repeat after me. Even though I might have breast cancer, I’m good enough, smart enough and dog gone it people like me.” I immediately followed her advice because as I have said I always do as I am told. Then she told us that we could try to go through the Every Woman Counts program.

I immediately got on the phone and called the Susan G. Komen foundation and the EWC program and the parents without partners and the FBI and anyone else that might have information or aide. This is what I found out. I don’t qualify for PWP because, duh I have a partner. I don’t qualify for aide from the FBI

because those are really just a bunch of rednecks walking around with t-shirts that say “F.B.I.” which stands for female body inspectors and who in reality have nothing to do with any government program but do cruise for women at parents without partners. I didn’t qualify for the EWC program because my husband works for a living. Finally the Komen foundation could do nothing for me because I didn’t have the diagnosis of “cancer” yet but a chipper voice said to call her back as soon as I got that particular diagnosis and she would be happy to help. My choices were to divorce Kahuna and apply as an indigent woman or to find a job that would let me apply for health insurance. Now the reason I stopped working several years ago was because of my health and yet they were telling me to go find a job in the state with the highest unemployment and add that stress to my already panicked life.

I think something is amiss here and as soon as I figure it out I’ll let you know. Oh and I still didn’t have my stereophonic In and Out burger, even though I now had three learned physicians telling me it was imperative to have this procedure or risk certain death.

I humbly went into my shower and began doing my EFT tapping and crying. What do I do? I can not get a doctor to see me without insurance and I can’t get insurance without a job. I can’t get a job because honestly who would hire a woman that was found under a rock, has a peach pit in her left boob and a seventeen foot long hair growing from said nipple? Tell me WHO? No really because I could use the extra income and of course the insurance. I want to tell you all that I know my body pretty well. I have had many ailments in my past and have always had that gut feeling that something was wrong. This time I didn’t have that gut feeling. Yes I have a family history of the big “c” and I am probably genetically pre-disposed to having it. I have suffered my whole life with fibril cystic disease and auto-immune diseases, yet this did not feel like anything to be worried about.

Every other week the B.S. office would call and ask if I had gotten insurance. Every other week my answer was the same. I’m working on it. Every other week Dr. Wonderful called me and asked if I had gotten my stereophonic In and Out burger and every other week I answered I’m working on it. She would regale me with tells of double mastectomies, bone cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer and so on. Every week I would go into my shower and stand and cry. I called doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist and they all said the same thing. Gee you really need to get a stereophonic In and Out burger but you don’t have insurance so I can’t help you. Good luck with that and call us back if you get health insurance.

So what I wanted to tell you is today I’m going to see a doctor about scheduling a stereophonic In and Out burger. I’ll let you know how it turns out.