the great boob squeeze of 2012.

purple nurple?
titty twister?
or, maybe it’s more like getting the awkward second base grope.

nah.

as my sweet friend, sarah, so eloquently put it, it’s like being in a panini press.

a few years ago, i wrote about needing to get a baseline mammogram.  well, as of yesterday {you know, three years & four months AFTER seeing a genetic counselor}, i can finally check baseline mammogram off of my seemingly never-ending “to do” list.

as a 35th birthday present to myself & with a referral in my hand from my OB/GYN, i had my little girls photographed.

i’ll admit…i was nervous.  it wasn’t the “oh, crap, i’m going to the gyno for a yearly” kind of nervous.  don’t get me wrong, i still showered, scrubbed & prepped {my skin was sanitized, yo}.  and, i still had the nervous poos {don’t lie…you know you get them, too}.  oh, and let’s not discuss the fact that i could NOT find the breast center office in the hospital’s maze of a complex.  seriously, WHO completely misses a big ass pink dolphin in front of an all brick building?  this girl.

anyways.

i get checked in.  i get a wristband.  and, i wait.  as i sat in the waiting room, i realized that i was perhaps the youngest woman there.  but, given my family history, this was a wait worth waiting for.

about fifteen minutes after my scheduled appointment time i’m called back by the sweetest of nurses.  she & i had to have been close in age.  she asks me some general questions & double checks that my bracelet information matches the information that she has.  i’m given a wipe to take off my deodorant {so much for NOT smelling nervous} and told to strip from the waist up.

eek, i’m topless!  this isn’t like that one time in mexico… {don’t you wish you knew about THAT story!}

thank goodness for the trusty hospital gown.  i don’t know what they wash those things in, but it was soft & it smelled like comfort.  comfort & hope.  i opened the curtain for my room to let my nurse know i was ready & she brought me to the “photography room.”  she explained the process, the machine, what may or may not happen since this is my first mammogram…you know, the usual spiel.

it was go time.

to spare you the boring play-by-play, my right girlfriend went first.  three pictures on that side.  then, it was my left girlfriend’s turn.  three pictures on that side.  i might have to go back for more pictures – at the discretion of the radiologist – because i have dense breast tissue.

dense breast tissue.  who knew??  i knew my head was pretty dense, but not my sorry excuses for a-cups.

the photo session was over.  the radiologist would read my scans the day after & i would either get a follow-up call via telephone or letter if i needed to have additional scans {since this was my first mammogram sometimes they like to get MORE pictures}.  but, basically, as long as everything checks out okay, i’ll just go back & see them again next september on the day after my birthday {and the year after that and the year after that and the year after that…}.

so that’s that.

no harm.  no foul.  and, i would much rather have my boobs panini pressed than get another set of dental x-rays ever again.

p.s.  grope your girls once a month.  you might not be ready for mammograms, but a monthly grope can save your life.