Healthcare over fifty
Even at its best, not for the faint of heart
This letter came in the mail today.
For ladies over forty, it is a great year when you get the letter. It arrives slowly with the news that you don’t have to return for another year. It’s preferable to the letter requesting additional films. It’s infinitely better than receiving a call from the Breast Center the day after your mammogram asking you to come in and could you come on Monday.
I’ve been lucky. All of those scenarios have just been what they call “scares.” I’ve had a few scares. I’ve not had cancer. I’m lucky. Some of my friends have not been lucky. So let me just be clear before I write what I’m about to write: I’ve been lucky.
Someday I won’t be lucky, but today, I am.
And this summer, I’ve been particularly lucky: good colonoscopy, good mammogram. I’m not due for a pap smear until 2025, five years after 2020. 2020, that was a great year to have medical procedures. There’s nothing like having a transvaginal ultrasound in a nearly deserted imaging facility. I had to knock at the door to scare up anybody in the office. There were so few patients that the tech had time to be thorough. Exceptionally thorough. Another scare.
And not a very big scare, because I still get to go five years between pap smears. Five years! If you’re younger and carefree, you can’t even imagine it, can you? Five years between pap smears. I’ll never forget the day my gynecologist told me that I could go five years between pap smears because he said, “you’ve just had the one sexual partner.” I was so offended. What did he know about my life? He didn’t know my mysterious past! Turns out, he just meant I’d been married for a long time and that I’d just had one sexual partner for a long time. And that was true.
I have a woman gynecologist now.
The good lord willing and the creeks don’t rise -- if you know what I mean by creeks in this instance -- I’m not due for any more poking or prodding in 2024. I cannot describe the feeling of elation. Actually, I can. The giddiness in my heart today has reminded me most of falling in love. You know the excitement when you’ve just started talking to a boy and you think about him all the time and you can’t wait to see him again? That euphoria? That’s what I feel about not having to be probed or flattened or snaked for another year. I feel as good as an excellent second date.
Again, I say I’m lucky. We are lucky to live in this time of preventative care. Our capitalist healthcare system is broken, but the imaging technology is great. If you have insurance. Which I do. Because I’m lucky.
Anyway, I’m thinking since it looks like I won’t be paying a $2,000 bill for diagnostic imaging this year, maybe I should get my bum knee looked at. It hurts most days. Maybe since I’ve got a little medical vacation for the hinter regions, it’s time to give my joints a go at the doctor. Ah, American healthcare. Ah, capitalism. As I said, the system’s broken, but the MRIs are superb.
PS. Do I need to tell you to go get your mammogram? Go get your dang mammogram.