I’m 43 and Have Dense Breasts

The Story of My Unexpected Second Mammogram

Getting a mammogram makes you feel as old as a fossil because you’ve finally reached “that age”.

Even the name reeks of old lady vibes. I think I’ll call it the “mammy grammy”.

If we just called it “boob scan” or “breast squeeze,” it wouldn’t feel so bleh. It might even make you feel a little sexy.

“Yeah, these ladies are squeezing my boobs today.”

It’s all in the packaging.

How to Package Your Breasts

You hear about the infamous squeezing of the boobs for years before you actually have to go through it.

The vibe around these conversations is pretty negative. I’ve been dreading it for over a decade because a mammogram is often advertised as painful and uncomfortable.

It wasn’t. Uncomfortable…yes. Painful…no.

In general, it’s not that big a deal. Although the process did cause a slew of emotions and observations that I wasn’t expecting.

That’s what this story is about.

Efficient Breast Manipulation

The process for my first mammogram was super efficient and quick. I was ordered to change into a front-opening scrub shirt and given a robe to go over it.

Then I was taken to a room where a nurse explained she’d be groping me intimately for the next few minutes.

If you’ve ever had your yearly pap smear and breast exam, you know exactly how exposed and awkward these situations are. It was the same.

You try to act like it’s not weird that you expose your right breast and then your left breast to let a complete stranger with plastic gloves manipulate your lady parts in unnatural ways.

It’s invasive. (Maybe I’m too modest.)

The nurse was kind though, and we joked a bit.

She explained that since this was my first time, I would very likely have to come in again. Since they didn’t have a map of the inner parts of my breasts, they had nothing to compare to. If anything looked suspicious at all, I’d have further scans, an ultrasound, and even a biopsy all in one visit if necessary.

The Second Call — Dense Breasts

I got that call. I’d been thoroughly warned, so I wasn’t unsettled by it until I noticed the lady’s tone of voice who called me. Her tone was that of a mother calming a panicking child. I wasn’t panicking until I heard her.

She reminded me this was fairly normal, but her tone said something different…something could be wrong.

So I set up my next appointment, which I was told could take two to three hours. I scheduled childcare. I told my best friend but no one else. I didn’t want anyone else to panic unnecessarily…especially my mom.

Later, on a walk with my husband, I quickly and nonchalantly told him. His dad died from cancer when he was 17. Medical issues are a big deal to him.

Oddly, he barely reacted. Later I found out why. He wasn’t listening.

I soon received a letter in the mail saying exactly what I had told him. He opened it, read it, and then asked me about it like he was hearing the news for the first time. (insert face palm emoji)

Ahem, moving on. This story is about my breasts being fondled, not my husband’s lack of attention.

The letter stated, “Your breast density was classified as: Heterogeneously Dense, which may obscure small masses.”

I wouldn’t mind my legs being called dense. You know…dense with muscle. That would be a good thing. Like De Bruyne’s thighs. That’s a good kind of dense.

But somehow calling my breasts dense doesn’t feel very sexy.

“Hi, my name’s Sarah and I have dense breasts.”

The Ominous Second Visit

I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. But as the day drew closer, I started worrying a little. I’m human.

When I arrived, I went through the same procedure as before but in a different, smaller area of the clinic for those called back: check in, change into a front-open scrub top with a pink robe, sit in the waiting room with HGTV quietly playing on repeat.

There were other women with me in the tiny space reserved for second-timers.

No one made eye contact for fear of accidentally glancing down at another’s chesticles.

They do their best to try to make you feel decent and covered with those thin, worn layers; yet you still feel exposed because everyone knows they’re going to be looking at your boobs. That’s awkward. The knowing.

It’s my ultimate fantasy to never have to wear a bra again, but somehow this didn’t feel freeing. I felt exposed. It was degrading somehow, clinical. Maybe that was the problem. No one was really addressing the elephant in the room.

Would it be better if a nurse stepped in and announced, “Cheryl, we’re going to touch your breasts now. Come this way.”

The whole thing felt invasive, secretive, and slightly creepy. Like I’d been stripped of something. Something more than just my bra.

A couple of women were taken back to various rooms and soon brought back to the waiting area to sit again. I was dying to ask them if they were OK. What was their prognosis? Because people shouldn’t be alone with stuff like this.

One elderly lady was given her happy news right there in the waiting room. She was all clear. Her relief and joy at this news made me tear up. I wanted to give her a hug.

Then it was my turn.

I was led to a small, dim room with one technician. The technician nurse was friendly, which helped put me at ease.

The weirdest part of all this is that you have to stand while they adjust you for the scan.

Think of the X-rays they take at the dentist’s office.

The standing feels wrong. Like I have to hold myself up during a crisis when I just want to sit down because I feel weak.

Standing, they manipulate your boob onto a cold, plastic platform before pinning you into place. You feel like they’re sculpting clay or mashing play-do around. Your boob gets moved in ways you never knew it could move.

And then they position your arms like a puppeteer maneuvering a broken ballerina.

Then you take a deep breath and hold it. Release. Small breath and hold. Release.

The same breath instructions for each scan.

Because the area they were concerned about was against my chest wall at the very back, we had to go through several iterations of this before my technician was satisfied.

Then I was sent to the waiting room again.

More Waiting

Someone new had taken my previous seat. I was a little miffed. Anything comforting and familiar at a time like this is helpful.

Again…silence. No eye contact.

A new nurse came to get me and led me to a different room. A room more familiar to me after two pregnancies and two miscarriages. The ultrasound room.

The radiologist wasn’t satisfied and needed to see more.

Now I was really starting to worry. (Although I think subconsciously I’d reached “really worried” ages ago. I just hadn’t fully let it sink in yet.)

An Ultrasound for Your Ladies…Not Your Babies

Having an ultrasound of your boobs is quite different than having one during pregnancy. Not the same excited anticipation. It’s the same dim, quiet room where the technicians whisper and you wonder why they can’t just tell you what’s going on. The decor is old and tired like everywhere else in the building, and you wonder if you could get a decorating gig because anyone could do better than this.

After a lot of whispering, pushing my right breast around with the transducer (had to Google that one), throwing around medical terminology indicating which sector they were looking at on my body, and more whispering, they wiped me off and sent me back to the waiting room.

I was promised that the mysterious radiologist would make a pronouncement about my health soon and that I’d have more testing right then and there if necessary.

Yippee.

The Great and Powerful Wizard of Boobs

I never actually saw the infamous radiologist who’s probably in a back corner nibbling her fingertips and reading X-rays in a dark, dank hole all day. Real life is nothing like Grey’s Anatomy and their room of big screens they manipulate like secret agents.

Finally, with my heart in my throat, a different nurse called me into a different room to give me my sentence.

“All clear. Everything is OK. The radiologist didn’t find anything. Come back in a year.”

A yellow sheet of paper was ripped off the carbon copy and handed to me without ceremony.

OK…everything is just OK?

Funny how that’s the answer you want, but you’re shocked when you get it.

There should’ve been a reveal party with confetti and a banner that said, “Congrats! You get to keep your bazookas!”

I should’ve gotten a prize or something. At least a pen to commemorate this moment? A hug at least!

It was very, very anticlimactic.

I was so befuddled by the sudden letdown (no pun intended) and release after a couple of months of anticipation that I tried to leave with my scrubs and robe still on. The nurse gently reminded me I should change first and get my belongings.

It didn’t seem like the first time she’d told someone that.

It all sort of hit me then. I didn’t realize I’d been taking such shallow breaths for over a month.

The good news is now that they have these initial scans on me, they’ll know each year if something shows up new or different in my dense breasts.

The Moral of the Story

So the moral of the story is the initial mammogram visit might turn into more than you bargained for. Hopefully, you won’t panic unless you really need to. You now know that follow-up visits are very normal for your first mammogram.

Finally, while I loathe doctors’ offices and pretty much anything medical, don’t put off a simple scan. We’ve all heard the stories of people who wait too long to catch something serious. We all know someone who did not get a clean bill of health, which is why getting your boobs uncomfortably squished for a few seconds is so important.

Getting older sucks as your body reaches its peak and then starts descending down the other side. But it’s better to own up to it and be proactive about prevention than to get a real surprise of something more serious.

Don’t wait!

Side story:

This was my husband’s response to my clean prognosis. Sometimes I worry about him, but at least he thinks my breasts are stellar ;).