Valerie Frank is an associate producer of the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston, and a previous cast member of ImprovBoston. She is also a recent Stage 3 cancer survivor, and holds the record for the most surgeries needed for a lumpectomy that her surgeon has ever seen (4). As a result she is still dealing with her huge boobs, although now the left one is much smaller than the right. She's not old, she just has white hair. www.wicf.com
At 44, I was diagnosed with stage 2B ER/PR+ HER2- breast cancer (later found to be stage 3). The terrible days immediately following a breast cancer diagnosis are a flurry of unpleasant tests. One of these tests is a breast MRI. This involves lying face-down on a table with two square holes in it (you know, for all the ladies and gents out there with SQUARE boobs). You just drop your boobies into these holes, and into the scanner you go.
Sounds easy -- unless you have massive, huge, a-size-rarely-found-in-nature breasts. I’m approximately a 40J. So when it came time to jam my boobs into the square holes, my round pegs weren’t gonna fit no matter how hard we tried. Two nurses attempted and failed to jam my breasts into the machine. I could tell they were beginning to panic a little.
An actual conversation that took place at my Breast MRI:
Me: This probably happens all the time, right?
Nurse: It’s never happened before, at least not since I’ve been here.
Me: Hopefully you just started a couple of days ago.
Her: No, I’ve been here more than 10 years.
Me: Could I possibly have the biggest boobs in the world?
Her: Um… I don’t… well…
Me: Biggest boobs in Boston then?
Her: Uh… probably not?
Me: So that’s a maybe.
Her: I’m gonna need to call the attending doctor.
I started making helpful suggestions like, “Anyone got any Crisco?” and “In a pinch, a few pats of butter might do the trick!” and "WD40 has many uses, perhaps this is one!" No one was listening. They were in the next room, debating their options.
After 40 or so tense minutes, the attending doctor showed up. She didn’t have any brilliant epiphanies either. My conversation with her went like this:
Me: So, any clue how we’re gonna get these big mammaries into those little squares? (I opened the gown to flash the doctor so she could see what she was dealing with.)
Doctor: *stunned silence*
Eventually, a nurse thought of removing the "comfort padding" from around the holes to give me a few extra millimeters of room. That was just the space we needed. They kneaded and smooshed my boobs in until they complied. Someone asked, “Are you comfortable?” and I said “No, I'm lying on raw metal. You just took off all the padding that makes this comfortable. Now let’s do this.” Finally, success.
And that’s how I know that I (probably) have the biggest tits in Boston.