Up Close and Personal, and Little White Lies

Today, I made the annual pilgrimage to the X-ray Department of the hospital for my mammogram. We are blessed here in Name-of-Town withheld with a great program that allows women regular access to mammography starting at age 40, regardless of the absence of a hereditary risk, and despite disagreement amongst some members of the medical community about whether or not mammography actually makes a difference in survival rates.  Personally, I think that early detection of any type of cancer makes a difference in the outcome.  At the very least, that type of knowledge would no doubt have an impact on the choices one might make in life.

Although the technician starts out by apologizing (in my experience, this is never a good thing when coupled with medical procedures), the mammography process is not horrible.  It is, however,  a bit weird to sit on a stool whilst each of your breasts is squished as flat as a pancake between two plexi-glass trays.  The process is then repeated with your breasts being squished from each side.   I can live that.  What I find daunting is the written exercise that must be completed by patients before the procedure even begins. 

This morning the process began when I walked into the waiting room.  I went to the clerk and handed him my admitting form. 

"Mammogram?" he boomed.  

I'm sure didn't mean to make me feel that I was the centre of attention, but I cringed a bit.  The squishing of the breast thing is not a secret and I couldn't help but think that maybe some of those in the waiting room were looking at the tee-shirt covering my sparsely endowed chest and wondering just how thin a pancake each of my A-cups would make. He handed me a clipboard and asked me to fill out a questionnaire.   I headed over to a seat I spied in the far corner of the room.   The questions were the same as last year, and started out with the easy ones, like "Have you had breast cancer since your last mammogram?" and "Are you currently taking hormones?" But then they move on the hard ones.  

"Do you drink alcohol more than once a week?"  What makes that one hard is that there is no "sometimes" box to tick.  Similarly, there is no "sometimes" or "it really depends on whether or not the Failed Mommies had a meeting" box to tick in response to the question about the quantity of alcoholic drinks consumed.

When asked how long its been since I last smoked cigarettes, am I expected to count the two times in the last 16 years that I just couldn't help myself? Then there's the BMI question.  Will they know if I shave five pounds off of my official weight and add another half an inch of height? It doesn't actually make a difference to my BMI, it's just a way of rationalizing my desire to skip my run today.  

Alas, this exercise gets me wondering about why these questions are being asked in the first place.  Sure, we're told that it's for the purpose of collecting statistics on breast cancer and determining with greater certainty who is at risk, but would being an alcoholic, or being overweight, have a bearing on the treatment I received if I were to be diagnosed with breast cancer?  Is there a risk that the information might be used to decide who deserves treatment and who "deserves" breast cancer?  Moreover, I can't help thinking that everyone I know who has had breast cancer has not had any of the risk factors, and this, in turn, leads me to wonder why I have to continually answer these questions.  Can the experts not accept the premise that "shit happens?".

The Quest Continues

A.J. is still missing and I am growing more and more terrified of where and when - and in what condition - he may turn up.  I have started searching the house, room-by-room, closet-by-closet, for the little rodent.  Being a failed mommy, I have not exactly leapt into action, and there are still a few places to search.  One of them is Janet's room.  

I find cleaning Janet's room a bit frightening even when there are no small animals missing.  It always sort of smells like dirty clothes and it is not unusual to find very old half-eaten apples in the corners behind the boxes.  Janet's father, who was, I think, a squirrel in a past life, is a master "stasher" and has passed this skill down to Janet, who has mastered it at the tender age of five.  She can "clean" her room in ten seconds flat, by piling absolutely everything into cardboard boxes, in no apparent order.  The boxes, in turn, are shoved into the corner, forming all kinds of crevasses and cardboard caves that would be absolutely perfect for a scared gerbil, looking for a quiet place to meet his maker.  Would you not agree?:

I have not yet worked up the courage to do a gerbil sweep of Janet's room, but I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, I appreciate comments and suggestions on how to locate lost rodents, dead or alive. 

  

The Quest for A.J.

We recently acquired two new gerbils, to replace Lisa, who died and was interred on May 27, and Homer, who died shortly thereafter.  The new guys are named A.J. and Jasmin (Jasmin is a male, but Janet chooses to believe he is female, so I just let it go). Unlike Homer and Lisa, who looked identical and displayed similar personality characteristics, these two are completely different.  Jasmin is pure gray and likes to hide in his cage and scurries away as soon as anyone enters the room.  A.J., on the other hand, has pinto-like markings and is friendly and curious.  It is the latter which may, I fear, be his downfall.  

A.J. is AWOL.

We're not sure how he got out of the cage, but he managed to escape.  Daniel discovered the door to the cage wide open after he and his dad got home tonight.  Jasmin was, as usual, inside his little toilet paper roll tube, but A.J. was nowhere to be found.  By the time I got home, Daniel and his dad had performed a preliminary sweep and strategically placed little gerbil treats in various spots around the house, to be checked every few hours.  So far, there is no sign of him.

I am fearful.  It's not that I fear for A.J.'s safety - I actually don't care that much for rodents, nor do I fear having to deal with the over-the-top reaction I predict from Janet when we finally come to accept that A.J. is not coming back.  Janet's sorrow over these kind of events can usually be soothed with a trip to Walmart. No, I fear something greater than all that.  I fear that we will find A.J., dead and rotting, where and when we least expect it, and it will be something right out of those movies about stupid teenagers who go exploring old abandoned houses in hillbilly country.  

My fears are not baseless.  I grew up in the country and although we had a very efficient and hard-working cat, the occasional mouse made its way into the house and, unfortunately, never made it out again.  I found one - along with several of her long-dead offspring and her nest - in one of my cowboy boots on a spring day.  I was about 12-years old and since that time, I have carefully tipped all enclosed footwear upside down before shoving in either of my feet. 

I have been frantically Googling sites that might shed some light on how to lure A.J. back before he finds some quiet trap and - eek - expires.

The search continues.  I'll keep you posted.

Socks and the Men Who Scatter Them

Arnold does little to annoy me, and that is likely one of the things that has given our relationship a fighting chance.  I realize that we must accept each other to make this work and that, even though I hate to admit it, we both have flaws.  That said, there is the issue of the socks and frankly, none of my flaws are nearly as annoying as this one.

You see, like virtually all men, Arnold leaves his socks laying about the house in various places.  He will deny that he continues to do this, and, in fact, denied it as recently as this evening (after reading my comment about socks and men generally on Facebook).  I admit that there have been fewer random sock sightings in our home in the past couple of weeks, however, this can be attributed to the fact that it's warm out and Arnold has been wearing sandals - without socks.   Come October, it will be (sock) business as usual.

For years, I wondered if he was leaving his socks around as some kind of sick game to see if he could drive me to the breaking point, secure in the knowledge that "random-man-sock-litter" is not yet recognized as a mitigating factor or defence to murder.   I feared that I had, perhaps, partnered up with a guy "just like dad", who also left (leaves) his socks laying about, much to the chagrin of Kelda, who has been resignedly picking them up for close to forty years.  I rarely spoke up, however, preferring to simmer quietly whilst picking up the socks that  I found between the cushions on the couch, beside the chair or in the middle of the living room floor. Sometimes I fantasized about throwing them in the garbage or sneaking into his workplace and stuffing them in his desk drawer.  I even thought about driving out to the campsites and offering them up as a starter kit for bonfires. 

One day, after a particularly fruitful sock harvest, I spilled my frustration to my wise neighbour and personal advisor,  known affectionately as "She-of-Many-Children."  It turns out that I am not alone in my suffering and frustration.  Her husband, too, has this annoying habit and she told me of others.  Suddenly, I felt better.   I was not alone in my world of random socks. As I grew more confident, I started to casually mention the sock issue to my female friends and we seemed to bond on a whole new level.  Apparently, all men have this habit.  

I wondered briefly if the sock habit is nature or nurture.  Daniel has answered that question.  Just like his pop, he takes off his socks and leaves them everywhere.  I have found them in the park, in the driveway, in the bathroom, in the living room and, most recently, I found about 6 pair scattered about the lawn.  It appears that, like having blue eyes or a penis, for that matter, the habit of leaving socks everywhere is completely genetic and while it is regrettable that it cannot be changed, it's nice to know that Arnold and Daniel are not just trying to "sock it to me" until I break.  I can live with that.

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel turned eight this week. He had a great party and used the occasion to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Canada. His party guests and their families generously contributed close to $500.00 to this outstanding organisation. Daniel came up with the idea - and the charity - himself and we're very proud of him.

Happy birthday, Buddy! I love you!