What to give a 'twisted' individual (6/16/03)

One of my sisters-in-law is graduating this weekend. She finished school last December but the ceremony isn’t until Saturday. She now spends her days taking X-rays of everything from body parts to Halloween candy.

Have you ever broken a bone? Then you know how sadistic the radiology techs can be as they manipulate shattered limbs into position with the shallow promise of, “Hold still, this will only take a minute.”

I suppose that by going into this profession she can take out all her aggressions on patients instead of on her family like the rest of us do. She swears this isn’t true, that she is very gentle and only requires people to move enough to get the film under the affected body part.

I broke my left arm when I was in fourth grade. We were in school and were on our way back to the classroom. The boy in front of me tripped on the stairs. I was turned around talking to my girlfriend and fell right on top of him. I cracked my arm on the edge of the stair. It hurt like the dickens.

I didn’t tell anybody at the time how bad the pain was, not even my girlfriend. I just picked myself up, got back in line and tried not to cry. Sometime that evening my folks noticed I was cradling my arm. They hauled me to the hospital where the X-ray people twisted my arm this way and that as the big, scary machine did its thing. Having the person doing the test go hide behind a screen does nothing to reassure a frightened child.

After they determined that the bone was broken and that I wasn’t faking, it was time for a trip to the doctor’s office. My grandmother had to hold me down while my arm was wrapped in plaster. I screamed and whined the entire time. Little did I know that I was in for six long weeks of unreachable itching. Thank goodness things are different these days.

Many of the procedures my sister-in-law was taught during her education she learned outside of class. She worked at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Dayton, Ohio at the time. She grew to love the patients and gained as much knowledge from her co-workers as she did from her professors.

She has also taken additional schooling so that she can be certified in different X-ray techniques. There must be a special class that teaches people how to twist women (and occasionally men) into pretzels for mammograms. I have never had one where I wasn’t required to stand on my tip-toes in the most contorted position imaginable while an ice-cold machine clamped down on me. I don’t know if she’s certified in this type of torture yet or not. If she isn’t, she will be eventually.

On Saturday she will put on the costume that marks her as a college graduate. She told me that her gown is the ugliest silver-gray that she has ever seen. She will perch an uncomfortable hat on the top of her golden curls. An honors cord will be fastened to her shoulder and she will join her classmates in one of the most significant walks of her life.

We will arise far too early for a Saturday to make the long drive to Hara Arena to help her and her family celebrate her accomplishment. Before we make that trip we must go shopping for a present suitable for a pretty young lady who makes her living zapping people with radiation. Any suggestions?[[In-content Ad]]