Bits And Pieces

No Need To Smile

     Probably there is no more lonely a spot than an X-ray room.  All tile, metal and windowless, the place has the same bone chill and loneliness of Grandma's old fashioned fruit cellar.

     Here I sat in a hospital gown, several feet too short and minus two strings to tie together waiting my turn to be photographed.

     X-ray departments have a nasty habit of taking away the last vestige of modesty I might have.  I'm ushered into a cubicle containing a hook, a chair, a mirror and standing room for me.  Told to remove all but shoes and stockings and handed a wrinkled, rough piece of yellowed sack to put on.  Then I'm left to cast around by myself for the missing ties that fasten these Dior models in the rear.

     At word from the technician you sidle into the cold, antiseptically clean X-ray room holding my sheet closed in the rear by clasping it with both hands.

     Naturally you don't look your best or feel your best and naturally you don't plan to frame this picture the busy little man in a white coat is preparing to take.

     To him you are just a number and a mixed assortment of strung together bones he wants to photograph to a fussy doctor's satisfaction.

     This was a cheery photographer this time who went about whistling as he slammed open a drawer in the center of the black, glistening X-ray machine.

     "Get hit from the rear?" he asked opening little cupboards in the wall and pulling out plates.  "Hop up here," he patted the cold smoothness of the flat, bed like surface of the machine.

     "No, I"--my teeth chattered as I began edging my spine along the ice-like hard surface, the robe splitting open to let in the coldness.

     "Tricky, these neck and back things," he continued.  "Yup they come and they go."  On the "come" he prodded my hip bone, measuring it with his eye and settling it into line for the picture.  On the "go" he busily snapped an arm back, cracked my shoulder blades into the table as he whipped them into the correct position.  With a "That's nice.  Now hold it."  He disappeared into his boxlike cupboard. 

     "Take a deep breath," he sing-songed.  "Now blow it all out," was the next instruction.  "Hold it."  There was a whirling noise that rattled my tense frame feebly and the technician declared "Fine, now breathe," and my bone formation was quickly and permanently photographed.

     Picturing bones is relatively simple for you as the patient.  It's when they want to film your inner workings that the complications begin. 

     "In fact," declared a technician attending a recent X-ray.  "If you manage to struggle through the preparation for the tests, you can't be too sick."

     Now I'd sure like to know right away if that pain is really anything to worry about, but it will be several days before those large, black films are read and you know the results.  I've tried all sorts of conversational bits with the technician--things like:  "How do things look?  Are there any stones in the gall bladder?  Is there anything missing in the spinal cord?"

     But the technicians are the strong silent types.  They may discuss the weather or political situation of our country; but they'll impart nary a word on my photographed condition.

     Finally word is flown by carrier pigeon or slow pony express to your doctor.  After I've called the office for the zillionth time I'm given the glad word that things are okay--at least in that department just X-rayed.

     I'm well and healthy until that next yearly physical which always gives me three hundred and sixty-five days to develop a whole new set of symptoms so I can don that tie less gown to be photographed again.

     You know, maybe this X-ray business would be pleasanter if those outfits we are told to put on could be in the form of a shift or robe in bright print, sorta ablaze with color and boasting a zipper which will shield us from public view and help out modesty.  Now this outfit could have a definite psychological lift to the apprehensive, soon to be photographed patient and revolutionize the whole X-ray department.

     There is one nice thing about this type of photography---You never have to smile and say "cheese". 

Written 6/25/64