Mia was practically shaking as she handed the receptionist at the hospital her insurance card and driver’s license. 28 years old and she’d found a lump in her breast the same morning she started her first “adult” job. She was too young to get cancer!! It couldn’t be! Except almost every woman over the age of 35 in her family had experienced weird and serious health issues at one point or another in life. She had desperately hoped she’d be an outlier, but now…

It had taken over a month for her to get in for the first available appointment. “A bit unorthodox but the earliest we have available” the operator had told her when she’d called the hospital in a panic in the middle of her first day at work. Mia didn’t know how a mammogram could be unorthodox, or why it would take weeks to get one scheduled in the first place, but she took the appointment without hesitation.

Now she stood trembling in front of the large check in window as the receptionist scanned her cards and typed rapid keystrokes into the computer in front of her. She had cancer, she was going to be diagnosed with cancer today, her life was over before she’d even had a chance to enjoy it!!

“Ok Mia, go ahead and have a seat, they’ll be out to grab you and the others in a few minutes,” the receptionist shook her from her spiraling thoughts and Mia looked around the waiting area. There were a lot of other women sitting and waiting - some of them looking bored, others anxious and/or nervous, one woman was visibly crying with tears running down her red, splotchy cheeks.

Mia took a seat as separate from the others as she could find on a far wall of the room. She honestly hadn’t expected the hospital to be so busy. Surely not all of these young women - and the vast majority of them did appear to be quite young, around her own age - were here for mammograms?

The locked door next to the reception desk clicked open and out stepped a short, older woman holding a clipboard.

“Two o’clock,” the woman shouted out to the room, “Amy, Beth, Carrie, Deliah, Mary, Marie, Maria, Sophie, Stephanie…” Nine women all rose from their seats and began to walk towards the nurse in the doorway.

“…Oh, and Mia,” the nurse read out as she appeared to visually count the women and refer back to her clipboard. “Too many M’s… Come with me ladies…” She pulled the ten women in beyond the door and it thudded closed behind Mia as she crossed the threshold. She immediately understood why the scheduler had told her the hospital was “unorthodox” - never could she have anticipated a scenario where she would be called back for her procedure with nine other women in tow. Surely this would broach some sort of medical, ethical, or patient confidentiality issues?

“Ok ladies, we’ll line up here…” the nurse stopped in front of two large double doors that were locked and closed. “Please stand on one of the blue circles on the floor down the hallway here…” she directed to a long line of ten blue circles that were evenly spaced several feet apart down the length of the corridor they were standing in. “When it’s your turn, you will come to the door, tell me your name, date of birth, and confirm the reason for your visit today. Once you’re inside the door, turn left so we can grab your height and weight, and you’ll be directed where to go from there.”

Mia breathed a sigh of relief. It was an unorthodox manner of check-in, sure, but the spacing seemed to provide some sort of privacy and she assumed this was just an efficient method to triage a large number of patients at a time into their various appointments for the hour. They had told her when she’d made the appointment that it could take an hour or longer depending on the findings…

The check-in nurse was incredibly efficient in getting the other women in through the double doors and before she knew it, Mia stepped up to stand in front of the nurse.

“Name?”

“Mia White”

“Date of birth?”

“September 10, 1997”

”Reason for visit?”

“Mammogram? I found a lump in my breast about a month ago.”

“No mammograms. Which breast?”

Mia stammered over this sudden revelation, “Uh… left, but…”

“You’ll be getting an ultrasound, you can provide further details inside,” the nurse scanned her badge behind her and the doors swung open for Mia to enter. She didn’t move and the nurse actually pushed (pushed?!) her at the small of her back to enter.

Mia stumbled into another hallway as the doors thudded closed and clicked to a lock behind her. She turned to the left where another nurse was waiting with clipboard in hand down a short hall in front of a scale.

“You can remove your shoes, and place them in one of the cubbies behind you here, you won’t need them beyond this point,” the nurse nodded to a wall of at least 50 cubbies, half filled with shoes already. “Step up on the scale so I can grab your height and weight…”

Mia slipped off her shoes and tucked them into an empty cubby, then turned around to step on the scale next to where the nurse was standing.

“Mia White… 163 pounds, five feet… seven inches? Does that seem about right to you?”

“Uh…sure,” Mia had no idea, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d stepped on a scale or had her height measured.

“Great, you can head on inside then. You’ll be directed where to go once you get inside the doors here, they’re going to want you to remove everything from head to toe.”

“But…” Mia was about to protest as the nurse badged her card at the door she was standing next to and the door swung open to a room filled(?!?) with other women.

Again, she froze where she stood and the nurse pushed her - forcibly, even - at the small of her back, sending her stumbling forward into the bizarre room that had opened before her. Again, the door behind her thudded to a close and she heard the loud click of a lock.