That Annual Check-up Thing

Yes, time again for ye olde physicale. The mammogram, the blah blah blah, the cholesterol screening.

Time to demystify this whole womanish cancer prevention business. No more slinking about. So ladies, here's what ya do...

Just walk up to the desk where they give you the x-ray paperwork, look carefully around to see how many men are sitting in the waiting area and then announce as loudly as possible,

"I'M HERE FOR MY MAMMOGRAM!! YO BABY, WHERE'S MY FREE CANDY AND ICE-PACKS?"

Here is the cute little room they let you wait in while the tech is looking over the four basic slides she has just taken. It's the inspiration for many a woman's bathroom decor. And notice the can of antiperspirant? It is there because (as I found out last year) YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO COME IN WITH DEODERANT ON !
If you do, you will have to wash it off. However, once you are all done--including going back in for two more slam-dunks, since two of the first four were messed up--then and ONLY THEN, can you use the cute little can. Providing you don't mind a personal care product that's been utilized by a gazillion other women.

Then it is on to the check-up proper, since you have had the good sense to schedule the mammogram AND the check-up on the very same day. Unfortunately, you have forgotten that since a couple of the tests were actually performed in April last year, and not March, you shall have to return in a couple of weeks, as your insurance company does not pay for people who attempt to be overly healthy.

And speaking of superb health, my nurse-practitioner said she has never, as in NEVER heard of anyone having as super an HDL as moi. Oh yes, she's had someone around 90, but never anyone with the spectacular number of 100! We'll see how it comes out this year, as that is one of the tests for next month.

Now for something new: after sporadic nagging and dubious looks given to me when I have asked certain people to repeat their speech, Ma decided to break down and ask for a hearing test. It's a rather generic test, to be sure, but a reasonable one as opposed to being referred to an audiologist and then finding out the insurance won't pay...
Oh look...what funny ears you have, Ma. But I must say, I look rather reasonable, don't you think?


Here I am after popping two Dove's Dark Chocolates into my mouth...
"...OOOOoooo, look at the pretty colors..."

Aside from the obvious need to have several of my extra chins removed, I tested QUITE normal in hearing, with ever so slight lessened ability to distinguish the lower range with the right ear. HOWEVER, it WAS within the norms, so we can finally say with no more equivocation, that CERTAIN people have been mumbling.

I'm sure they will try harder in the future, as I would hate to have to refer grown persons to a speech pathologist...
________________

I saw a bald eagle soaring in the sky on my way to the appointment, but exercising tremendous willpower and restraint, I did not pull over, stop, or even roll down my window and take a picture while driving. (which I admit to having done once or twice :-D )«(extra chin)

Plenty of swollen streams along the way back home. Somewhere amidst this watery mass runs a small, meandering creek...
By the way, any apparent sag to the middle of the quaint wooden bridge has nothing whatever to do with the fact I was standing on it.

So that's today, in a nutshell.

In honor of soon approaching St. Patrick's day, I'll leave you with this ancient Irish blessing:

"May the road rise to meet you,
yet not so the creek. And
Ma
has the best
HDL."

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