My six monthly tweak and peek!

Every 6 months or so, I get my breasts checked for various lumps, bumps and other general oddities. It's become a familiar routine that I call my grab and go, or my tweak and peek!

My other half, let's call him Maverick (!), fantasises that I'm being felt up in the doctor's surgery by some tall, Amazonian-like beauty; preferably a Scarlett Johansen lookalike. Or, more pertinently perhaps, he thinks it's a job for which he would be well qualified... provided he can choose his clients. No saggy ones please!

The reality however, is much different. There is nothing remotely exotic about a post meopausal woman, with more hair on her chin than a ZZ Top member, feeling your girls and smiling at the same time. Or perhaps there is- the old male doctor, way past his prime that lingers perhaps a tad too long, leers in at you and claims- "they're perfectly fine my dear". Oooh, it makes you shudder.

So, it got me thinking about all the indignities we suffer as women for the sake of our health, or worse, for the sake of beauty, and why we insist on holding steadfast to that mantra: "no pain, no gain".

Memorable medical moments of mine include a spur of the moment and oh so recent smear test ('cause that's how I get my jollies... !). I lay there, legs spread open and vulnerable to the world like an insect pinned to the board of an eager entomologist, while the doctor bumbled about muttering to himself "hmm, that's odd, I can't quite seem to find your cervix". I was asked to cough on demand, like a soldier enlisting for the army- apparently this would make my shy little cervix emerge from behind wherever she was hiding.

Needless to say, after coughing and bellowing like a bull on heat for a few minutes, my cervix appeared, coaxed out of the shadows, and I escaped relatively unharmed, yet with my dignity in tatters.

I have plenty more stories like this- being electrocuted by a sadistic nurse while the doctor played a particulalry violent game of Space Invaders inside me was especially memorable, and there are many more.

But, I invite you, my lady friends to share your thoughts on all things medical and beautiful and painful that we women brave. And yet we endure!

P.S: Oh- if you are worried about girl things- get it checked out straight away- see your gyno or Dr or check out these sites!

http://www.cancer.org.au/documents/Early_detection_breast_cancer_%20MAY04.pdf

http://www.cancer.org.au/default.cfm