Healing

Well, it's been eight days since the surgery. The first five days were horrible. I was drowning in regret and spent a few minutes here and there in tears over my decision. Tom assured me it was no big deal and that if I hated them we'd go have them taken out. I did hate them. They were humongous and ugly and protruberant. Pictures of Jennifer Anniston's body just made me want to cry. How did I somehow wind up with a gi-normous chest when all I wanted was a B?

But on day six, the swelling began to subside. Today, I got dressed and looked in the mirror and realized that I look just as I used to--when I was wearing my big puffy bras. That is exactly what I have wanted for 10 years! Just to not be advertising false anymore. And there's still more "dropping" to happen in my healing, which is good.

So let me clarify a few things that I forgot earlier and recount the nasty of getting it done:

Cost: 5K

Size: I have always been a flat-chested girl. I didn't really want to change that too much. I wanted to be the size my big cheater bras have been making me out to be for all these years. But, just to make sure, I bought a few different sized bras, put them on, stuffed 'em, and put my favorite shirts on to see how it all looked. When I went to the doctor I could confidently say that I wanted a B, maybe a small C (but I decided on B). Later, I took my B-sized bra out of my purse, put it on, and put a few sample implants in it to determine what size I needed. You have to consider your real body in the equation, so what makes me a B might make you a D, if you're bustier than I am to begin with, you see.

I discussed it all with my doctor and we decided that I should go with 300's or 330's. I thought 300's would be best but decided on 330's because so many women complain that they wish they'd gone "a little bigger" and 300 vs 330 is a difference of about a tablespoon of liquid. It was the right thing to do, because I'm sitting here in my office looking down at myself and I'm still very moderately-chested--a medium B.

So despite the fear I had during the first 5 days--fear that I looked freakily large, etc--everything is turning out well. That extra size was just swelling, after all. A LOT of swelling.

Swelling and Pain: Here is the deal. Let's say you were busty but you've lost fullness, or you've had children and lost fullness. If you have the surgery to restore what you've had before (not go bigger) this surgery will not hurt you as much as mine hurt me. Your skin will have been larger at some point, you see, and although it will have retracted a bit due to loss of fullness, it won't be as tight as mine. I've not had children or bustiness so when they put these (relatively small) protheses in me, my poor skin had to go through 9 months' worth of stretching during a period of a few minutes--which resulted in pretty nasty pain for a few (5) days afterward.

Of course, I didn't take any of the hydrocodone they gave me. I don't like painkillers because they tend to make me nauseaus. I did all this on regular drugstore Tylenol.

Healing: They felt horrible inside of me for the first few days. Horrible. And I had feelings of having "betrayed" my body (which is weird since I've had plastic surgery before, in which they sliced my face open and used a chisel on my skull) and that made me feel bad psychologically. And BTW, they gurgle a little, and slosh a little for the first few days, which I imagine would be distressing if you didn't know it was going to happen. They stop gurgling on about day three.

They're heavy, at first, on your poor injured body tissues. But I don't notice the weight much anymore, and I imagine in a few more days, I won't notice at all.

Dropping: When the doctor puts these inside of you, they tend to ride high due to swelling, etc. Over time, the swelling reduces and they "drop" down into place. Mine are still dropping, and will continue to over the next few weeks, slowly. The best way to describe this is that they have been extremely perky (like I'm wearing an invisible push-up bra) and every day they are a little more relaxed. Swelling from plastic surgery takes a long time to subside, I guess.

Sensation: When someone cuts deep into you, they cut nerves. It takes time for these to grow back. That's just life. I can feel mine growing back, in the form of little lightning pangs through my chest now and then. They're irritating and feel sort of bad, but I know that's regrowth so I try to say "Yay" everytime I feel that.

So, there' my story. The skin on my chest is still a bit bruised and yucky looking, so I'm going to wait another week or so before I take my after shots.