Whatever happened to mandatory yearly chest x-rays?
I know that when I was a child, we went into a mobile unit out in the school yard that had an x-ray machine in it, and we all had to get a chest x-ray.
You know: "Take a deep breath, hold it -- that is all." Does anyone else remember this?
With all the angst about mammograms, why isn't there any crying about chest x-rays. I think they would be more important to more people than mammograms. Does anyone else agree with me on this?
I haven't had a chest x-ray since -- well, I can't remember how long ago it was I had one. Maybe when I had a stroke in 2001. But I don't remember anything about that day, and Alan doesn't remember what all they did to me. Yes, I said did to me. Should I have said did for me?
I know I had a chest x-ray in 1993 when I had kidney stones and they were setting me up for a kidney-stone-ectomy (I don't know what it's called, but I was sure glad I passed that little bugger before surgery!).
So, as I was remembering things from school in Runnemede, it occurred to me that yearly x-rays were part and parcel of small-town living.
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2 comments:
I'm not a doctor (and I also don't play one on TV), but I believe they used chest xray to screen for tuberculosis in those days. TB is, of course, highly contagious, and it was quite a scourge back then. We had entire hospitals devoted to the care of those afflicted with it. Eventually we got better screening tools and we also got a better idea of the damage that could be done by xray!
With that said, I'll now bow out and make room for people who actually know something!
You are correct, of course. I knew all that, but I got to thinking about it because I have a deep cough, no cold, just a bad cough and was thinking I really need a chest x-ray.
Also, didn't they do that TB test where they pricked your skin and if you got a rash then they would run a bunch more tests for TB. But we still got that chest x-ray.
Actually, we got a lot of free medical stuff when you think about it when we were in school. Probably because Runnemede was basically a lower-income town. I mean how many families had more than 2 nickles to rub together at the end of a pay period?
Thanks for the input.
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