Monday, December 17, 2007

I had a mammogram....

One morning about 5 years ago I awoke to find a humongous blister on top of my right foot just at the beginning of my little toe. At first I had no worries about the ugly thing other than a curious wonder as to where it came from. I have enjoyed athletics all my life and have had many blisters before, but never one this big and never one on the top of my foot.Two days later the blister, if anything, had grown bigger, but of new concern to me was the fact I now had a pain in that little toe nearest the blister. Now that I was feeling some intense pain I decided it was time to go visit the doctor for an assessment as to whether I had something more seriousthan a blister.
Upon presenting my pained foot to the doc along with the growing blister, his initial assessment was that this was a ganglion cyst and asked if I had received a blow to my foot in the last several days, which I had not. This concerned the doctor a bit as it would have given him the cause for the sudden appearance of the big water sack that now resided on the top of my foot. To get a better idea of what he was looking at the doctor ordered me over to mammography to get a soft tissue x-ray of what he hoped was a ganglion cyst.I put my sock on over the foot and walked the several hundred feet over to mammography with the doctors orders in my hand. Immediately upon entering the recieving area I could see I was the only man in sight and most every eye was looking at me as I was very much out of place. Now it has always been my dream to find myself as the only man in a room full of lovely, vibrant women, but now that the dream was a reality I felt oh so uncomfortable. In my brain I imagined every woman there thought I must be a pervert looking for the backside view of an open hospital gown or a peek into an xray room if a door was open in the hopes of seeing some cleavage. When I produced the request for a mammography to the receptionist with the instruction to take a shot of my foot I could see she was stifling a snicker, but she proceeded to have me fill out paper work and took me to the proper room.The radiologist (a woman again) came in and asked me to take off my sock so she could have a look. Upon producing my foot with the humongous blister her comment was..."Well, I've seen some small boobs before, but that is definitely the smallest"
I wasn't sure if she was talking about the blister or the fact I was at the hospital for a minor ailment, but when she said..."The first one I've seen without a nipple" I knew she was talking about the blister.
They had to bring in a stool for me to stand on in order to get my foot high enough up into the equipment to get a shot of my foot. I now have a new appreciation for what that machine does to you ladies. I had to hold my foot up in the proper place as if I were practicing some karate stance.
Upon returning to the doc with my mammogram shots I was given the good news that indeed it was a ganglion cyst and it would probably go away as quick as it came...which it did.
Just as he was getting ready to pull the xray off the screen though, the doc did a double take..."You have a broken toe!!!" he exclaimed..."I can tell by the way you walk though, it doesn't bother you. When did you break your toe?"
I replied that it was waaaaaayyyyy back in high school to which he replied..."Well, it didn't heal back together as one bone...you now have two bones in your foot that only healed over on the ends..."
I got far more than I bargained for that day...the ganglion cyst is gone but my foot is still broken....it could only happen to me...

3 comments:

Amy said...

Have you ever heard that song, "Man, I feel like a woman!" That was your theme song for that day! Loved the story! I hadn't heard that one either.

The Betitas said...

im going to use that story for those moments when i am asked the question "tell us one interesting thing about yourself" i'll reply, "my uncle has a perpetual broken toe...since high school"

Angela said...

I do remember this particular story! However, it is nice to read the part about you being the only guy in a room full of women...you never told that part of the story to me.
I think I also have a broken pinky toe that never quite healed right.
It is about the same size as my middle toe and it aches when it gets cold.

Ang