Old but still cool occasionally

A few weeks ago my insurance company left a long pre-recorded message on my answering machine. I don’t remember it specifically but the gist of it was:

Hey ancient crone! Our records indicate we’ve never had any claims to reject from you for a mammogram. You do realize you are a woman of a certain age and getting older & ought to have your bewbs squished annually don’t you? Oh, we’re not saying we’ll pay for it. This message in NO WAY implies that bewb squishing is a covered service under your policy terms. It might be, but we are not about to confirm that until we absolutely have to. Possibly we’ll have some money left over from fully covering Viagra prescriptions and be able to throw a few bucks your way. Either way, you’re old and should make a bewb squishing appointment with the hospital after referral from the appropriate provider, after getting permission from your primary care physician to see that provider so you can then make the appointment. (Ha ha! That’s $45 in flat fees right there plus 20% of whatever extra little charges we can manage and we are not about to tell you whether the squishing is a $30 specialist fee or $100 hospital fee now because then we might not be able to stick you for more money later). We’re your insurance company and we care about you, so start the bewb squishing process today for your health!

Seeing as how they care so much about my health I took their advice. I’m 42 and by rights, even with the every other year suggestion of my various physicians, I ought to have had at least one mammogram by now. But due to my doc of 10 years leaving the practice to go back to school 2 years ago and the variety of specialists I’ve been to see for my endo, the mammogram thing took a back seat & was overlooked. There was also apparently a typo on a referral form making me 5 years younger than I am, which was only realized at the last OBs.

I was able to do the insurance companies out of their flat fees by making some phone calls. Everyone  had seen me recently enough to just fax paperwork without my presence. HA!

Last Thursday I went to the Medical Imaging Center and waited my turn. Despite my early appointment this naturally took much much longer than anticipated. Fortunately I had brought my Nintendo DS, which is all sylin’ with a black & purple skin and in a black & purple case

Everyone in the registration area thought it was really cool and asked me about the skins. Everyone in the lobby thought getting yourself a DS was a great idea & maybe they’d take Junior’s old one since he was getting a DSi for Xmas and then pimp theirs out too. The techs asked me about what games I play and where I got the skins & the case.

And for the first time ever I felt like one of the cool people, a trendsetter even.

I’ll bet I was the hippest crone getting a mammogram that day.  W00T!