WHAT!!! ME GET A MAMMOGRAM?

Chapter 1, pages5-7

Yea, I showed her all right, truth be told, it was easier to get the stupid mammogram than to find a new gynecologist. I wanted someone I trusted to give me a recommendation. This was not the kind of doctor you pick out of a phone book. Even though I have lived in this town for over two years I still didn't have a close
enough friendship with any woman in order to ask her if she could recommend a gynecologist. So, that is why on a hot summer afternoon that I found myself driving
on 287 north toward Memorial Hospital angry that I had to give up an afternoon that could have been spent at the community pool with my kids.
This was my third monogram, and my second one at Memorial. I chose the hospital instead of a clinic for the test simply because I knew were the hospital was.
I have no sense of direction and get lost easily, hospitals are easy to find because they are big and they have those blue hospital signs that show the way. What I
didn’t count on was getting lost once I got inside of the building.
Memorial Hospital is built in a hill, so the main entrance seems to be on the ground level and the Radiation department four levels underground. Yet, if you go to
a different entrance, you have to go up a few flights to get to the main lobby. Too confusing for me, so I make it a point to park in the same area and use the same
entrance each visit.
Once I found the right floor, I wandered around the halls for fifteen minutes before I found the radiation department. This department was large. People go there
for all kinds of X-rays and many different types of scanning tests. There was a main waiting room where you check-in and wait to be called. This waiting room was
big and can accommodate somewhere around thirty people. The room was a nice green color (+) the walls were lined with comfortable chairs (+) that were too close together (-). There were two receptionists who knew what they were doing (+) and there were nice pictures on the wall (+). There were also two couches in the center
of the room facing a TV (---). I hate TV's in waiting rooms they make it hard to for me to concentrate on my book. As TV's go this one isn't very loud, but I still
found it annoying. I give the room a C+ (it would have been a B+ but it loses a whole grade point for having a TV).
I proceed to the reception desk to check in. I was told that I had to go to the out-patient department FIRST to check-in, then come back to the reception desk. Luckily the out-patient department was on the same floor as the radiation department was so my chances of finding it quickly were good.
Let me stop for a moment to tell you about the out-patient check-in procedure, and the people who work there. This department is the place where every, I Mean every patient who is having any kind-of same-day procedure (excluding surgery) must check-in. It is always busy. You stand in line until one of the clerks yells 'NEXT',
then you go to a window where you present a valid ID card, a prescription for what is being done and your insurance card. The clerk working at the window puts all
the information into the hospital's computer so you can be billed, then they give you a paper and send you on your way. The clerks have a very repetitive job that
could become boring fast, and the people doing this job could become bored and surly. But they are not. In the next year I will spend a lot of time there and I never
once encountered an unpleasant person.
The check-in clerks are a cohesive group of people with their own brand of humor. There is frequently some kind of in-side joke going on, and if they liked you, they will let you in on it. These wonderful people consistently put me in a good mood for the start of whatever torture my doctors planned for me that day.
Back to my mammogram; I did all the out-patient paper work then went back to the radiation waiting room. I tried to read my book, but found it hard to concentrate because of the TV. Luckily I was called quickly.