It’s been a fortnight of earthquake, wind and torrential rain and, for several people I care deeply about, a morass of complicated and painful events. ‘Sometimes life’s a shit sandwich,’ I say to a mate Monday, and he looks at me ruefully and says, ‘well, actually, there’s more’. All week we have been wading through difficult things; all week I’ve been plagued by sleeplessness, headaches and sudden tears. And I’m a mere bit player on the sidelines of the conflict, confusion and heartache in these people’s lives.
Then, Friday morning I wake to the luxury of a day at home. I lie in my warm bed, listening to the rain and the other members of the family heading off to work.
I have one thing in the diary, and that’s my two-yearly mammogram appointment. I drive to the Breastscreen clinic with my headlights on and windscreen wipers working overtime. I hand in my form, and ten minutes later I am topless is a cosy room with a diminutive radiographer gently moulding my underarms, breasts and shoulders into the best contortion for the X-ray machine to do its diagnostic magic. This foot forward, that foot back, the other shoulder relaxed, folds of tummy flesh folded neatly away with her deft, warm hands, chin up, hold very still. I squint down at my mammaries flattened firmly between two blocks of Perspex and am struck, out of nowhere, by how lucky I am to be here, having this procedure.
The radiographer apologises more than once in the barely ten minutes that I’m there. I reassure her that I am absolutely fine. ‘Too easy’, I say, and I mean it. I’m in there a total of 15 minutes, and I walk out humbled, and humming jauntily.
The benefit of this sophisticated technology is mine for nothing. Not a cent. A short car trip on a rainy morning, a pleasant lady and two minutes of mild discomfort that could save my life.
On the way home, I call at the chemist to collect the tablets that will probably ensure that I don’t, like other family members, start having heart attacks in my late fifties. This week I’ve also been to the dentist, a regular check that sure, I had to pay for, but it fixed the minor problems that are unlikely, now, to become major. Painful, rotting teeth that were the bane of the lives of so many people until the last century are something I probably won’t have to contend with.
Then there are all the other things: pap smears and eye checks and inoculations for my kids when they were little, and for me when I go to India. Things we tend to either take for granted or to whinge about as an expense and a hassle, time-consuming and painful, when they are privileges that most people in the history of humankind, and a large proportion of human beings in the world today, do without. Don’t even get me started on the other stuff that has saved my life, like appendectomies and safe childbirth and effective treatment for depression.
I’m not trying to be a Pollyanna here. It’s just that it was such an grim fortnight and I was feeling spent, wrung dry and then the mammogram reminded me of the nature of my life, which is mostly, blessed blessed blessed.