Medical Language Follies

In getting my health care organized in this new place, it turned out I was overdue for a mammogram. Given my family history, my new doctor decided this was a priority, so within a week I had an appointment to get squished. (This was back in October.)

I went back to the private hospital where Marty and I had our first appointment to meet our new doctor. During that previous appointment we had figured out the check-in area. You take a number based on your type of check-in, then wait to get called to the front. We’d chosen General and lucked out, checking in for a private appointment WAS very general. But the lady who checked us in spoke no English, and in all the pantomiming somehow I got checked in and Marty didn’t. This time I was ready, I had a couple of phrases all set: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Portuguese. I need to check in for a scan.” I stumbled through this and watched the quiet smile on the face of the man behind the desk, who waited a beat after I was finished, then proceeded to speak in perfect English. Was he smirking? He was definitely smirking. But I laughed and said I didn’t want to assume, and everybody walked away in good humour.
Up in the radiology department it was a little different. The receptionists had very little English, but we all spoke “hospital” and it’s pretty easy to mime and pick words out of Google Translate when I’m clearly NOT there to buy a train ticket, say. They handed me your classic form with pictures and where to circle on the boob diagram if there are issues and a checklist to tick off … but it was all in Portuguese. Luckily I don’t have anything, really, to report on this form, so I just signed it and handed it back. She looked at me quizzically and I just waved at my boobs and said “No problemas!” Nods of understanding went all round, and I sat down to wait.

I looked up some terms in Google Translate while waiting, because there were things I needed to communicate to the technician. During my first-ever mammogram there was a slight concern, and I ended up having a biopsy because they had no baseline. It was fine, but they left a small tracer in place to note for the future. So I’m looking up “tracer” and “breast biopsy.” Breast biopsy is “biópsia de mama” and now I can’t stop snickering. Because I’m 12.

Some things never change, mammograms are somewhat painful, but they get quicker every time I have one as the technology keeps improving. The techs are awesome and quickly get the sense of the previous biopsy and the tracer.

I also had an ultrasound because they tend to pair those, and honestly, that was less pleasant. Mainly because I was left covered in goopy gel and didn’t figure out where the towels were!