Thursday, with some things done!
Mar. 19th, 2026 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI got my car inspected today. I also got me inspected today, about which more below the cut.
At my most-recent annual physical, like a week ago, my doc was like "Hey, you haven't been getting annual mammograms like breast-owners-of-your-age SHOULD be doing."
And I said "I know. I don't like mammograms and I think we do them too often in this country."
Doctor nodded and she was like, "Well, it's been five years since your last one. Would you like to mammogram this year?"
Because doc wasn't "YOU MUST MAMMOGRAM" or "I have scheduled a mammogram for you, you noncompliant piece of work, get your ass over there for the boob squeezing" and instead was "Would you like to mammogram this year?" I said yes.
Then she asked whether I would schedule it myself or if she could schedule it. I know me. If someone *else* schedules an appointment I don't want to attend and hands me a little card saying "Show up at outpatient at noon-thirty on the appointed day" then I will 100% show up at outpatient at noon-thirty on the appointed day to do the fucking appointment.
If I have to schedule the appointment myself, it never gets scheduled because that is a bridge too far. Pick up a phone? Call an office? Discuss dates that I would be available? LOLOLOL, that's not happening.
I suspect that I'm not even remotely the only human like this because most doctor offices make follow up appointments for patients. They wouldn't do it unless it improved compliance.
Our hospital (a glorified urgent care with a heliport and some basic imaging services -- it used to be more of a hospital but that wasn't profitable so UPMC shut down damn near everything but the urgent care and basic imaging parts) now has a security guard and a metal detector at the entrance. Ugh.
I have some issues about metal detectors. Like, I would prefer HUGE SIGNS saying METAL DETECTOR INSIDE, GO BACK TO YOUR VEHICLE AND STRIP THE METAL SO THAT OUR FUCKING MACHINE WILL NOT BEEP AT YOU LIKE YOU ARE A TERRORIST OR SOME SHIT outside than going in there unaware and having to put My Metal Things in a bin. I do not like the bin.
When I know there is a metal detector involved, I leave all metal (belt, cell phone case with metal belt clip, keys for work, wallet, vehicle keys) in the vehicle (nobody is going to steal my vehicles) and just take myself, my phone, and my photo ID and possibly a health insurance card or a credit card or whatever inside. Even so, the phone has to go in the fucking bin but I like having a phone so that I am not bored during the twenty minute wait for services.
Surprise metal detectors piss me off an irrational amount and pretty much ruin my day. So that was fun. *sigh* At least now I know there's a metal detector there, so the next time I go in, I will be more prepared.
Fucking bin. Bin germs all over my stuff. ARGH.
Anyway, so I got to the mammogram area. There were some questions for the form, one of which was "It says here that you had a mammogram done in 2021, where did you have that done?"
It would have been at this same dipshit rural urgent care masquerading as a hospital. There's no way I drove to Altoona or Cumberland to have a mammogram. Somehow the dipshit rural "hospital" has lost the imaging. That's on them. They won't EVER give me the imaging even though I pay for it, which is an ongoing boiling rage that I have with the medical establishment.
Look, idiots. I am PAYING FOR THE WORK PRODUCT, why can I not have the work product? But no. I cannot have the work product. (Trust me, I have asked.) I can, if I want, PAY to go have office time with my doctor who will TALK TO ME about the work product but I do not get to see it. ARGH. I cannot go to medical records in the hospital and show them photo ID and look at it. (I've tried that, too.) NO IMAGING FOR ME.
If you break a bone, they show you the imaging because they want you to believe it is broken and want you to go get it fixed. (I know this because I broke my wrist in 2022 and I have pictures of the xrays.)
Do you know how to read a mammogram?
No.
Then why do you need to SEE a mammogram? Your poor weak little dipshit brain might be worried about all the tiny light specks of nothing-much that DO NOT mean cancer, they mean calcifications, we don't want you to see that because you would just worry your pretty little head about it.)
I will not have that problem. I would like to see the data I paid for. I want to look at it even if I don't know jack shit about it. I'd like to take pictures of the imaging with my cellphone. It's mine and I paid for it, I should not have to pay AGAIN for someone to TALK TO ME ABOUT MY FEELINGS REGARDING THE WORK PRODUCT WITHOUT FUCKING LETTING ME LOOK AT IT.
*sigh*
*breathe*
I am trying to be an adult about this but damn it's infuriating and I absolutely despise the lack of agency I experience every damn time I interact with doctors. Fuck you, paternalistic medical establishment. Just... fuck you.
There's a reason I have not had a mammogram for more years than they "recommend". This whole system fucking winds me up for like a week and I tantrum like an overtired and underfed toddler. Damn it. This could 100% be averted if they just let me take pictures of the imaged boobs with my cellphone, but no. Can't do that. Couldn't POSSIBLY do that.
Fuck you, medical establishment. Damn, I am way too angry about this.
Boobs are, for what it's worth, fine, something I figured out after doing the "email us to get your login credential" and "two-factor authentication because you're using a web interface and not Our App and your phone is not locked down with biometrics" (fuck your app, biometrics over my dead body) and otherwise jerking around for twenty minutes. Could you not just text me "Your mammogram is fine." ? You can certainly email me a link so that I can fuck around and (eventually) find out, but a text of "Your mammogram is fine" would have taken me three seconds and not twenty minutes. Who else do you think is using my goddamn phone?
Why can't I just sign an authorization for you to text me? YES PLEASE I WOULD LIKE NORMAL "NO PROBLEM" TEST RESULTS BY TEXT. If HIPAA is my rights, can I waive my rights to make my life easier? Americans are allowed to waive rights to an attorney if we are ARRESTED BY THE POLICE ON SUSPICION OF MURDER. That sort of thing could make a citizen think this country had pretty darned solid "waiving rights" powers available to its citizens. But no. You can decline an attorney when you're up on murder charges but you as a functional adult cannot get your doctor's office to text you "no problems here" test results.
(None of this is the fault of the nice lady doing the mammograms. She doesn't set policy and she doesn't want to lose her job. She is not allowed to let me see the mammogram pictures, I know good and well that she is not allowed to let me see the mammogram pictures, and so I do not ask that of her.)
You seem very upset about things that don't generate rage-filled screeds when normal people experience them. Are you autistic?
I do not have an autism diagnosis.
At my most-recent annual physical, like a week ago, my doc was like "Hey, you haven't been getting annual mammograms like breast-owners-of-your-age SHOULD be doing."
And I said "I know. I don't like mammograms and I think we do them too often in this country."
Doctor nodded and she was like, "Well, it's been five years since your last one. Would you like to mammogram this year?"
Because doc wasn't "YOU MUST MAMMOGRAM" or "I have scheduled a mammogram for you, you noncompliant piece of work, get your ass over there for the boob squeezing" and instead was "Would you like to mammogram this year?" I said yes.
Then she asked whether I would schedule it myself or if she could schedule it. I know me. If someone *else* schedules an appointment I don't want to attend and hands me a little card saying "Show up at outpatient at noon-thirty on the appointed day" then I will 100% show up at outpatient at noon-thirty on the appointed day to do the fucking appointment.
If I have to schedule the appointment myself, it never gets scheduled because that is a bridge too far. Pick up a phone? Call an office? Discuss dates that I would be available? LOLOLOL, that's not happening.
I suspect that I'm not even remotely the only human like this because most doctor offices make follow up appointments for patients. They wouldn't do it unless it improved compliance.
Our hospital (a glorified urgent care with a heliport and some basic imaging services -- it used to be more of a hospital but that wasn't profitable so UPMC shut down damn near everything but the urgent care and basic imaging parts) now has a security guard and a metal detector at the entrance. Ugh.
I have some issues about metal detectors. Like, I would prefer HUGE SIGNS saying METAL DETECTOR INSIDE, GO BACK TO YOUR VEHICLE AND STRIP THE METAL SO THAT OUR FUCKING MACHINE WILL NOT BEEP AT YOU LIKE YOU ARE A TERRORIST OR SOME SHIT outside than going in there unaware and having to put My Metal Things in a bin. I do not like the bin.
When I know there is a metal detector involved, I leave all metal (belt, cell phone case with metal belt clip, keys for work, wallet, vehicle keys) in the vehicle (nobody is going to steal my vehicles) and just take myself, my phone, and my photo ID and possibly a health insurance card or a credit card or whatever inside. Even so, the phone has to go in the fucking bin but I like having a phone so that I am not bored during the twenty minute wait for services.
Surprise metal detectors piss me off an irrational amount and pretty much ruin my day. So that was fun. *sigh* At least now I know there's a metal detector there, so the next time I go in, I will be more prepared.
Fucking bin. Bin germs all over my stuff. ARGH.
Anyway, so I got to the mammogram area. There were some questions for the form, one of which was "It says here that you had a mammogram done in 2021, where did you have that done?"
It would have been at this same dipshit rural urgent care masquerading as a hospital. There's no way I drove to Altoona or Cumberland to have a mammogram. Somehow the dipshit rural "hospital" has lost the imaging. That's on them. They won't EVER give me the imaging even though I pay for it, which is an ongoing boiling rage that I have with the medical establishment.
Look, idiots. I am PAYING FOR THE WORK PRODUCT, why can I not have the work product? But no. I cannot have the work product. (Trust me, I have asked.) I can, if I want, PAY to go have office time with my doctor who will TALK TO ME about the work product but I do not get to see it. ARGH. I cannot go to medical records in the hospital and show them photo ID and look at it. (I've tried that, too.) NO IMAGING FOR ME.
If you break a bone, they show you the imaging because they want you to believe it is broken and want you to go get it fixed. (I know this because I broke my wrist in 2022 and I have pictures of the xrays.)
Do you know how to read a mammogram?
No.
Then why do you need to SEE a mammogram? Your poor weak little dipshit brain might be worried about all the tiny light specks of nothing-much that DO NOT mean cancer, they mean calcifications, we don't want you to see that because you would just worry your pretty little head about it.)
I will not have that problem. I would like to see the data I paid for. I want to look at it even if I don't know jack shit about it. I'd like to take pictures of the imaging with my cellphone. It's mine and I paid for it, I should not have to pay AGAIN for someone to TALK TO ME ABOUT MY FEELINGS REGARDING THE WORK PRODUCT WITHOUT FUCKING LETTING ME LOOK AT IT.
*sigh*
*breathe*
I am trying to be an adult about this but damn it's infuriating and I absolutely despise the lack of agency I experience every damn time I interact with doctors. Fuck you, paternalistic medical establishment. Just... fuck you.
There's a reason I have not had a mammogram for more years than they "recommend". This whole system fucking winds me up for like a week and I tantrum like an overtired and underfed toddler. Damn it. This could 100% be averted if they just let me take pictures of the imaged boobs with my cellphone, but no. Can't do that. Couldn't POSSIBLY do that.
Fuck you, medical establishment. Damn, I am way too angry about this.
Boobs are, for what it's worth, fine, something I figured out after doing the "email us to get your login credential" and "two-factor authentication because you're using a web interface and not Our App and your phone is not locked down with biometrics" (fuck your app, biometrics over my dead body) and otherwise jerking around for twenty minutes. Could you not just text me "Your mammogram is fine." ? You can certainly email me a link so that I can fuck around and (eventually) find out, but a text of "Your mammogram is fine" would have taken me three seconds and not twenty minutes. Who else do you think is using my goddamn phone?
Why can't I just sign an authorization for you to text me? YES PLEASE I WOULD LIKE NORMAL "NO PROBLEM" TEST RESULTS BY TEXT. If HIPAA is my rights, can I waive my rights to make my life easier? Americans are allowed to waive rights to an attorney if we are ARRESTED BY THE POLICE ON SUSPICION OF MURDER. That sort of thing could make a citizen think this country had pretty darned solid "waiving rights" powers available to its citizens. But no. You can decline an attorney when you're up on murder charges but you as a functional adult cannot get your doctor's office to text you "no problems here" test results.
(None of this is the fault of the nice lady doing the mammograms. She doesn't set policy and she doesn't want to lose her job. She is not allowed to let me see the mammogram pictures, I know good and well that she is not allowed to let me see the mammogram pictures, and so I do not ask that of her.)
You seem very upset about things that don't generate rage-filled screeds when normal people experience them. Are you autistic?
I do not have an autism diagnosis.
