Things Medical

I have spent a considerable amount of time since my return from DC visiting doctors’ offices. I had a tiny bit of cryosurgery and needed to have several bits, from my lady-parts to my lungs, checked out. Then it was time for the annual mammogram. That’s a procedure that isn’t normally associated with a barrel of laughs, but this year it turned out to be rather amusing. As I was filling out one of the forms, I noticed a sheet of paper taped to the clipboard. I was reading it with one eye while using the other to write when I had one of those “Whoa!” moments. It took a few seconds for me to realize that the information was, in fact, a joke. The technician told me that these instructions had made the rounds of the Internet, but I had never seen them and I reproduce them for anyone who may have missed them.

Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few moments each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test and best of all, you can do these simple exercises right in and around your home.

• Exercise One
Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in the door. Shut the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn’t effective enough.

• Exercise Two
Visit your garage at 3 a.m. when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.

• Exercise Three
Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Smash the bookends together as hard as you can. Set up an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.
You are totally prepared.

Oh, and the mammogram? It didn’t hurt one bit.