Boobs, boobs, boobs

Here at Pippi Cheshire's web home we usually strive to focus on the humor and light side of being human. Today's post, while intended to be light hearted is also a salute to a dear friend of mine, Elvira, who is battling breast cancer. To you my friend: I am in awe of your strength and grace under pressure. Always remember, we serve a mighty God who has answered and continues to answer prayers. Love to you my friend.

The things the medical community comes up with in the name of improving, diagnosing, and treating diseases of the body amaze me. They can stick a hose down your throat or up your butt looking in places no one should ever have to see by the light of day. They can inject you with radioactive material and run you back and forth through a machine as if they were making photocopies of you. Shoot, sometimes they don't even inject the radiation into you, they just shoot it at you; kinda like a demented photographer would.

It makes one think about who were these people who came up with the ideas and what warped individuals volunteered to be the first guinea pigs? Personally, I'm of the mindset, if you think up the idea, then you should believe in your theory strongly enough to be the first one to try it out. But I digress.

Men have longed had to endure the ole "turn your head and cough" thing as part of the physical required for the military (as well as routine exams) but women, being the special creatures we are, we get to exceed the limit of humiliation via the good old mammogram.

I know this process was dreamt up by a man as part of his "pay-back" to the female species, as if pregnancy and childbirth wasn't enough. For those who have not yet endured this lovely process, by all means, I'm about to share with you the joy of it!

Ok, first of all, a little background to set the mood. The Pippster was blessed in the boobage department. Not just a regular blessing, no, that would be too simple; we're talking double Ds. I affectionately call them my breasticles.

When I was a teenager they plagued me, but then they were only a size C. Since Zex and Scooter came along, well, they not only grew during the pregnancy, but they stayed around long after they were no longer needed. In addition to their growth in size, the problem is, now, not all things are created equal, even in the boob department.

I'm often reassured by many well meaning female friends, "oh, that's quite common for one to not be the same size as the other", but what they don't seem to grasp is the severity of the deformity that resides on my chest. For lack of a better illustration, God forgive me if I offend anyone, the difference I suffer from is like having one normal size adult arm and one pygmy arm. If I wasn't so tight, then I would buy two different bras, cut them in half, and make myself a bra that actually fits right, but I don't. Therefore, I do what most teenage girls do while they are awaiting puberty, I stuff my bra...but only on one side.

Anyhoo, once I reached the appropriate age (actually, I managed to sneak by a few years without one), my lovely GP decided that Pippi must have this experience. Great! I think to myself, remembering all the horror stories from previous participants in this exam. So, I get the phone call, my appointment was scheduled, and I was given a list of instructions; on this list is "no deodorant". Now, for those of you who have read my previous posts, then you know going without deodorant is an issue for me, but thank fully, my appointment was early morning. On a mother's day, how appropriate!

So, I arrive to the breast centre and am greeted by the lovely receptionist who while registering me seeks to ascertain that I am not wearing any scented lotions or deodorant, to which I reply, "No". When my name is called, I'm escorted to the back by another young woman who asks if I'm wearing deodorant and to which I, again, reply in the negative.

I'm herded into a changing room and handed a lovely gown with the instructions to remove everything on the top of my body and put the gown on, open in the front. With that she asks me if I had any questions. Although I had many a sarcastic thought run through my mind, I refrained and stated, "No". I strip off my shirt and bra and as soon as I do I realize how truly awful it is without deodorant. Once they were freed from their prison, the breasticles slid around all over my chest leaving behind a trail of sweaty ooze. I tried to blot them dry with a paper towel, but it didn't last long. There I sat in a little 2 x 2 room, clad in a paper gown wide open despite the lovely paper ties to hold it closed, and my pointers facing due south, then southeast, then southwest as they slithered around in time to my breathing.

Finally, a knock on the door! I was lead by a really chatty lady who was obviously playing her part to try to ease the sense of any embarrassment, me, the patient, may have being exposed as I was (you know, like walking around with the boobies hanging out of a gown is not my normal mode of dress). Little did she know, I couldn't have cared less as long as we could get a little breeze going under these puppies.

Anyway, she explains the procedure to me. There is a lovely metal surface on which we will place one breasticle at a time on. She will then lower another plate down on the top of the boob and it will be snug. She says, "Now, the snugger we can get it, the better look we can have at the tissues". Great, that's a nice way to say she is gonna make my boob flatter than a pancake. "Ok, let's do this", I say with great enthusiasm, "which one first?" She said it didn't matter, so, I whipped out the right one.

As soon as I flopped it up there it immediately slipped off the surface. Laughing I said,  "It's a tricky little sucker especially since I haven't prepped it with deodorant". She reassured me it was ok and she cleaned the surface with a paper towel and gave me another one to absorb some of the extra moisture. When she was ready, I again presented the right girl to the plate, and this time she stood her ground. The boob lady adjusted the upper plate to her satisfaction, told me to hold my breath, and she ran behind a large lead plated glass.

A little click and a buzz and she returned. "Time for the other one and we'll get ya out of here!" Yay, I think, this isn't so bad. Not anything quite like I had anticipated or had heard via the female rumour vine. But then again, we had started with the right one.

As she prepped the metal surface, I blotted under both breasticles again ensuring immediate placement. When she indicated she was ready, I brought out Lefty, and I heard an audible sucking in of breath; not mine, hers. "Oh my, this might be a challenge", she says in her most professional voice as she clucks her tongue. She arranged, then rearranged Lefty. She lowered the plate, but Lefty wasn't giving it up. Lefty was defying all odds, Lefty refused to be flat.

Now, it's one thing for the medical professional to torture and contort your body, but it's another thing when they decide they need to enlist your assistance to help them torment you. "Maybe if you could pull on the front part here while I pull on this side, the plate will be able to flatten the rest." Ok....

So, essentially I end up taking a hold of Lefty's pointer region and pulling her out like one would do when making balloon animals. Then the tech grabs the right side of Lefty and stretches with all she's worth while lowering the upper plate. After several tries we were finally able to get Lefty in a position where she vaguely resembled a pizza crust. "Ok, I'm gonna hurry, don't move, don't breathe, if we're lucky we'll get it on the first shot!", the woman exclaimed as she quickly ran to her protected area. Meanwhile, I'm hanging onto Lefty's pointer, pulling straight out with my left hand and my right hand has Lefty's right side stretched. Now mind you I'm not supposed to move because if I do then the picture would result in looking as if my boob had an alien growing in it.

Finally I hear the click and buzz and I don't even wait for her to tell me we're through because at this point Lefty is numb and my fingers are sore from trying to hold her in position. "We GOT it!", the tech exclaims happily, "first try too!". Great, I think, I would hate to picture us trying to reposition Lefty again. The old girl was so happy to be released from her torture chamber and to be freely swaying from side to side once again.

Once I had closed my gown up, I was led back to the changing room where I was told there was deodorant available to use (no thanks, I brought my own). I was instructed to wait there until the film was checked and someone would come to get me. As soon as she closed the door, I ripped off the paper gown, grabbed a handful of paper towels, ran them under the water from the sink, cleansed under the girls, dried, and applied lavish amounts of Secret Summer Breeze not just to my arm pits (which by this time were waterfalls) but under the girls as well.

When I was satisfied everyone was as dry as they were gonna be, I dressed myself. Before I could even sit down to wait, there was a knock on the door, and I heard a voice say, "Ms. Cheshire, everything is good, you're free to go. Just stop by the reception desk on your way out".

After checking to make sure everything was in it's rightful place and the girls looked "remotely" equal, I opened the door and walked to the reception desk. I was greeted once again by the same friendly woman. She set a follow up date for me and said, "Please take a rose; we are celebrating Mother's Day with all of our ladies today!" I smiled and thanked her as I selected one of the blossoms.

Once in my car, I laid the rose down on the seat beside me while I gathered my thoughts. It occurred to me this was the first time anyone had ever given me a rose. Who knew the only thing one had to do was let a total stranger smash the crapola out of your girls while you helped them. If I had know this was the only reason I hadn't been given flowers before, then I might've considered it long before now.

So, just a heads up for all you ladies out there. If you're waiting for your man to give you flowers, then take a tip from me. He is more likely to present you with a big bouquet if you allow his best friend to pull and tug on your girls to his hearts content!

P.S. On second thought Elvira, don't ask if there is a discount for only one boob, they might get the idea like the airlines to charge extra for those of us with breasticles!