When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win: Reflections on Looking in the Mirror by Carol Leifer

Author:Carol Leifer [Leifer, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

Preventative Medicine

The best day of my life was the twenty-four hours I thought I had cancer.

I was running late that day, but that had been pretty standard recently. Being in the throes of a passionate new love affair will do that to a girl. When you're seeing a member of the opposite sex, it's one thing—but when it's the first time you've “hopped the fence” and dated another female, that's an entirely different category of being out of it. But isn't that the whole point of a new infatuation? To legitimately have one's head in the clouds with no apologies?

So big deal if I arrived at three-fifteen instead of three. No worries, because I have an otherwise excellent track record when it comes to doctor appointments—I've never missed one in all my adult life. And that's not only because I'm Jewish. I'm just one of those people who like going to the doctor.

So much so that back when I was a full-time stand-up comic, the maître d’ in a club in New York City came over to me before a show one night and said, “Your doctor is in the audience tonight.”

And I replied, “Doctor? Which one?” (Between the internist, gynecologist, dermatologist, ear-nose-and-throat guy, et al., the room could have been filled with nothing but doctors.)

See, I like going to the doctor because it means that I'm in charge. Sickness and disease don't stand a chance if you're all up in their Kool-Aid with diagnostic tests and preventative measures. (And I wasn't about to change that policy, my lesbo fling notwithstanding.)

Besides the fact that I especially like my radiologist, Dr. Behotek. The magazines in his waiting room are all up-to-date and top-of-the-line—like People, Us Weekly, and Vanity Fair— and not like the office copy of Bone Density Today, which some quacks think is all that. Also, Dr. Behotek's practice is in a really sweet corner of Beverly Hills. And afterward I like to reward myself for a clean bill of health by browsing the really cute shops that surround the doc's place.

Sure, it's a given that having the actual mammogram sucks. First, you have to wait around like an idiot in that paper robe-shirt. (The only time it's handy to wear this shmata is if you have your mammogram at lunchtime and bring in your own pastrami sandwich with extra Russian dressing.) Next, the female X-ray technician applies those Band-Aids to your nipples, which is such a nice hello! (And all you can think about when they go on is how much it's going to smart later when they get yanked off.)

But very soon the kindly tech, while wearing an illustrated “I Love Kitties” set of scrubs, quickly morphs into an X-ray-machine-wielding S&M dominatrix. Her one true mission in life turns out to be taking your formerly full and bouncy boobs and squashing them good with these heavy glass plates, trying her darnedest to make them into crepes. But you just hold your breath as instructed with each X-ray she

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