PDD-NOS, Social Anxiety and Others

Belong to a breast cancer program. Every year I go for a mammogram, I'm in the control group, as there is no breast cancer in my family history.

So you go, making sure that you are wearing nothing that will interfere with the tests. You can't use deodorant on or powder or anything with scent or hair conditioner with scent (I don't use scented products anyway). No jewellery of any kind. I drive the thirty or so minutes, remove all my clothing, put on a hospital gown and paper slippers and wait to be called in.

Then spend twenty minutes or so having my breasts squeezed between two thick flat glass plates. While a technician re-adjusts the angles and touches me. The plates compress them to a thickness of about two inches. It hurts for two days afterward. The last time I went, I threw up my lunch in the hospital parking lot afterward.

I have a mammogram coming up this month. And don't want to go. I feel guilty as when I originally signed up for it, I was keen to do this for science...