This morning I went for my annual mammogram at the imaging facility downtown. When I walked in, a woman and her husband were speaking Spanish at the reception desk downstairs with someone who was giving them instructions, pointing to the elevator. When we were both in the waiting room upstairs, a third woman was there- an older woman telling her troubles to a sweet younger man who listened attentively, about how her son was doing 25 years to life in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Meanwhile the receptionist upstairs did not speak Spanish. Her instructions to the Spanish-speaking woman went from whole sentences to chopped up blocks of words, repeated in different combinations until some level of understanding was achieved. The woman and her husband spent a long time filling out the 1-page questionnaire that asked for information about family breast cancer history, pregnancies, and whether she nursed her babies; whether she had ever had a mammogram before.
The young man listening to the older woman seemed to know about the criminal justice system and when her son might be up for parole. She was to the back for her test before me. She wished the young man a blessed day and he returned the blessing.
Eventually I was called to the back for my exam. The technician told me about a man-- a trucker-- who had just been in there cursing his wife repeatedly for making him get a breast exam when he is a man. He had had bloody discharge from his nipples for weeks and insisted he must have injured himself on his rig. He was diagnosed with breast cancer. His wife saved his life.
I recalled my grandfather needing a mammogram during my childhood; he had to take hormones to grow his breasts large enough for the test. One Saturday morning while all the cousins were there, he came down the stairs with no shirt on to show us all his boobs. I heard my cousin Jenny shriek with laughter before I turned and saw him. I wonder if it hurts worse with a hairy chest.
After my exam I was ushered to another waiting room, still in the top-half dressing gown, to await my results. The older woman whose son is in jail was there waiting too, in a matching dressing gown. She told me she was nervous because she was told she had dense breast tissue, and they were taking a long time to deliver her results, so we got to talking, and she told me she usually volunteers at the polls, but she didn't this year because her nephew was killed in October and it really messed her up. She went on in a nervous stream of consciousness to pass the time. (She was sure to cast her own vote on November 8th though; she wanted me to know that).
She said the police thought her nephew killed himself; he was found in his bed with a 9 mm bullet in his head, but she said there's no way he did that. But the police are only human; they don't know. They do the best they can. Only God knows. His mother thought maybe he did, but she could not believe that. She knew things about him that he confided in her that his mother didn't know because she promised never to tell her, and she kept her word. She knows he was paid $20,000 to be a hit man, and he did it. And she said, the Bible tells us whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword. She said Jesus gave her a vision of what happened, and that he was drunk the night he died and there was a shadow in the room- a man's shadow. His girlfriend's ex-boyfriend killed him in his sleep with his own gun. He didn't kill himself, but he took another man's life and that was the price he paid. Now her nephew's 11 children are lost in the wilderness with no father, she said. Because things happen you can't prepare for.
Meanwhile the Spanish speaking woman went back for her exam. She was probably 60. The technician confirmed with her that her last mammogram was in Puerto Rico in 2017. They told her to have a seat and wait for her results a couple of different ways until she sat down. Everyone was kind to this woman, navigating everything in a language she does not yet understand. Imagine navigating the U.S. medical system and not speaking English. Buying groceries. Riding a bus. All of the barriers between yourself and others.
Finally the technician came out and told the older woman that her scans were clear. She thanked Jesus, and wished me a blessed day too.
