Forty is such a special time in a woman’s life. Age spots blossom on your hands, your back aches for no reason, and if you’re truly fortunate, you may begin to develop soft, jiggly jowls that small children can treat like Play-Doh. Yes, you’re about to experience some wonderful developments!
Don’t be alarmed by the changes in your body as you mature from a young, vibrant woman to stale, middle-age goods. Some women may start this transition earlier than 40, and some may start later, so remember it’s not a contest. It’s all a natural part of growing old and being cast aside by society, a process every beautiful woman endures 30 or 40 years before finally dying.
Perhaps the greatest rite of passage after turning 40 is going for your first annual mammogram. Also known as taking your sweater puppies to the vet, having your cans x-rayed every 12 months is an important screening exam to check for pesky cancer cells that can invade a woman’s most private parts and wreak havoc across her entire body.
By Megan Hanlon of Sugar Pig Blog
You will want to schedule your first mammogram in your 40th year, unless you observe the American Cancer Society’s recommendations, in which case you can wait until 45. Deciding when to start your mammograms is a personal choice that should be discussed with your lady doctor during one of your fun and exciting annual exams.
On the day of your first mammogram, be sure not to apply lotions, creams, or even deodorant anywhere on your torso. The x-ray technicians performing your exam are accustomed to the profuse nervous sweating that accompanies most cancer screenings, and they won’t mind your ripe stench at all.
When you check in at the doctor’s office or hospital, you will be asked to confirm your last name and birth date, just in case you’ve forgotten in your addled middle-age state. You will also be marked with a hospital wrist band to prevent premature escape. Then you’ll wait in the lobby listening to Fox News blare on a 26-inch television while sitting between someone of indeterminate gender sporting a full-body cast and an old man literally dying. After at least half an hour, but maybe more, you will be escorted through labyrinthine halls to a door featuring a large yellow and black radiation warning. There’s nothing to fear here; you’ll only receive the same dose of radiation as fish near Fukushima, and you probably won’t grow a third eye. Probably.
Once inside the exam room, the x-ray technician will again ask you to state your name and birth date as a way of getting acquainted before she manhandles your fun bags. Then she’ll ask whether you’re comfortable getting undressed with her back turned, as though she weren’t about to feel you up like a horny teenager. At this point in your life, probably everyone from the gynecologist to a lactation consultant to the UPS driver has seen your rack, so what does it matter? While she types away at a computer you will disrobe, inexplicably hiding your bra beneath your neatly folded shirt, and change into the finest available crop-top hospital gown made of cardboard and crushed pine needles. The technician will ask whether you have any freckles or birthmarks gracing your melons or hiding in your stinky pits, and if you’re lucky enough to sport some, she will mark them with stickers adhered to your delicate skin with rubber cement. Now you’re off to the races!
Next you cozy up to an impersonal beige mammography unit, wrapping your arms around it like the lover you never wanted. The technician will hoist one of your knockers, place it onto a film plate, and lower a second plastic plate on top of your chesticle until it is smooshed flat as a squirrel under your tire. You may in fact experience the sensation of having your boob run over by a car, but the disturbing discomfort is only temporary. During this time, avoid glancing downward and inadvertently seeing your once-proud lady lump being run through a literal ringer. There’s not enough lingerie in the world to recover your feelings of sexiness after that. And don’t forget to hold your breath while the camera unit beams radiation straight through your knocker to the film below — you don’t want your jug’s first pictures to be blurry! After just a few everlasting seconds, the x-ray is done.
But wait, there’s more! Each of the cousins has to be x-rayed not only horizontally, but also obliquely! Just like you’ve been giving your lilyhammers the side-eye since having kids, doctors will want to, too. Feel free to make inane small talk with the technician while she reorients the mammography unit, wrenches your tata forward, and crushes it diagonally between the two plates. It’s not awkward for anyone.
By this point your fight-or-flight response is probably screaming for you to flee, but Lord help us you’re still not done. Now that radiologists have two perfect photos of one of your girls, the entire process has to be repeated for the other side! Pay no attention to the feeling that you may be about to pass out — should your knees buckle, your firmly-squished chi chi will hold you in place until the x-rays are complete. It’s win-win.
Once your pride and both gazongas have been completely crushed, you are free to get dressed and avoid looking the x-ray technician in the eye ever again. You may experience some lingering discomfort in your tits and in your soul, but it’s nothing a couple of Advil and a few shots of tequila can’t fix.
A few days later, after a radiologist has ogled your insides, it’s not uncommon to receive a call informing you that you need to schedule a diagnostic mammogram follow-up. About 16 percent of lucky ladies getting their very first mammogram will require this second, more extensive imaging process to check out any areas of concern. It’s especially common for gals with dense jigglies, and nothing to be overly concerned about. Try repeating this to yourself over and over if you’re unable to fall asleep at night during the yawning weeks before your next appointment.
And remember, being a woman is special!
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About the Author
Megan Hanlon is a work-at-home-mom and recovering journalist who grew up in Texas but accidentally moved to Ohio. She shares her life with a husband, two children, and a disobedient Boston terrier. Read more at http://sugar-pig.blogspot.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter at @sugarpigblog.