Say Hello to My “Little” Friends: A Breast Reduction Story
Two things have been constant throughout my life, I’ve always been overweight and overbreasted. I’ve never been “skinny”. Even as a young child, I was always bigger than the other children. I was the biggest student in my class, the biggest out of all my friends, the biggest…well you get my point. For years I learned to appear to be okay with those truths, but deep inside I yearned for a change. Although, I have an hour-glass figure, a very large hour-glass figure, I wanted to experience how life could be in a less pronounced body.
Once Corona hit the streets and almost every state was mandated to work from home, I quickly began to gain weight. To ensure I didn’t start looking like the Michelin Man, I changed my eating lifestyle from more to less and my exercise lifestyle from non-existing to 6 days a week. I started dropping pounds and shedding inches, but my breasts were not in agreement with these new lifestyle changes, in other words…they remained large.
Now, before I segue into the heart of this post, I wanted to share a brief history about me and my twin girls.
Paying the Costs for Them to Be Boss
Some less endowed women may argue that having large breasts are a good thing, a great thing even. However, with great boobs comes great costs…literally and figuratively. While a woman with average sized breasts (34DD in America) can shop for bras in many clothing and/or lingerie stores, women with much larger breasts cannot. They are usually forced to shop in specialty stores that require you to have specialty money to afford their products. I primarily purchased my bras at Lane Bryant, which cost $60-$80 for one bra. I usually waited until their annual bra sale and racked up since bras where 50-60% off.
The other “costs” to having larger breasts are not monetary but are a combination of annoyances and physical discomforts. Such costs may include, but are not limited to, constant chaffing and rashes underneath your breasts caused by excessive sweat; shoulder bruises from tight bra straps cutting into the skin (this usually happens because the heaviness of your breasts pull the bra down); lower back pain; frequent annoyances when trying to purchase cute, fashionable tops because nothing fits; food crumbs falling down your shirt and sticking on your girls like bedazzled gems; and being a stain magnet for juice, water, sauces, and every condiment man has ever created and manufactured. These things my friends, were my lots for so years and I accepted and dealt with them until I started losing weight. As my large hour glass figure started getting smaller, I no longer wanted to accept or deal with these problems, so I made a life-changing and body-altering decision.
At my first reduction consultation, my breasts were poked, prodded, lifted, and squeezed but not before me explaining to my potential plastic surgeon and his team what led me to my decision. After pouring my heart out in the most dramatic manner possible (I was milking it as much as possible to get a favorable YES), I was given an abridged explanation of how the reduction would be executed if my health insurance approved the surgery, which is a process I’ll tell you more about in a minute. THEN…I was shown a silicone breast and told it was the approximate size my twins would have to be reduced to if I wanted my insurance company to cover the costs. My first inner reaction:
“AWWW HELL NO!!”
My audible, more appropriate, and less threatening response, “that’s really small”. I was currently wearing a 46DD/44DDD cup depending on the style of bra. The silicone boob was a “C” cup. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with bra cup hierarchy, let me quickly educate you:
DDD
DD
D
C
That was 2-3 sizes smaller! I haven’t been a “C” cup since I was in my mother’s womb, so while I needed and wanted a reduction, I had concerns.
“Will I still think I’m beautiful?”
“Will I look weird?”
“Who am I without them?”
I knew I had to think, think some more, and talk this decision through with God. But, while I was thinking and praying, I was also trying to increase my chances of getting the surgery approved (in case I did decide to have the reduction) by losing weight, 50 pounds to be exact.
The Surgery Process
See, because I was overweight, I had to jump through a couple of hoops. The first hoop was to lose weight. It was suggested that I lose 50 pounds before an approval attempt was even made to my health insurance company. According to the plastic surgeon, I would have a higher chance of being approved for the surgery if I weighed less; weight loss would also help reduce the risks of any surgery complications or side effects that could occur. The second hoop I had to jump through or surgery stipulation I faced was breast reduction resizing. For the surgery to be considered medically necessary and not cosmetic, my twins would have to be taken down to a specific size that was determined by some type of calculation, hence the reason the Nurse Practitioner pulled out the size C fake boob.
Side note: While a breast reduction is cosmetic, the health reasons must be eminent, to be approved. And simply saying, “they’re too big”, or “they’re stealing my shine in photos” (which they were), were not good enough reasons.
So, now we’re back to the decision part again…which of course, from the title of this post, you already know what I decided, but I’ll say it anyway, I decided to have the reduction. My insurance company approved the surgery despite me NOT losing the suggested 50 pounds. The reduction was scheduled for August 20, 2020 and I was brimming with excitement, joy, and relief. During my pre-op appointment, I was given the rundown about how they were going to scale down the twins.
WARNING: These details may be a bit graphic for some of you. I apologize in advance for grossing you out or offending you.
Because the girls were large, they were going to give me an “anchor breast lift”. The name derives from the shape of the incision pattern, which resembles an upside-down anchor. To create this anchor shape, three incisions are required. They would make/made one incision around the edge of my areola. The next incision would be/was a vertical incision from the bottom of my areola to the edge of my breast where it meets my chest. The third one would be/was a curving horizontal incision made underneath my breast beginning at my cleavage (where the breasts separate) and stopping underneath my armpit. My skin would be/was lifted and tightened and my areolas would be/were moved to an elevated position to complement my new breast size. Once the reshaping of my breasts is/was complete, the incisions would be/was closed with stitches, stutures, and surgery glue.
Okay, if I haven’t lost all of you yet with those gory details, let’s move on to my recovering process.
Recovery
So, I was given a good amount of instructions on how to care for myself over the next few weeks following the surgery.
I was told I could return to work in 2 weeks.
I was told I would be unable to take a shower for at least a week.
I was told I could not reach or lift anything over 20 pounds.
I was told I could not drive for at least 2 weeks (this ended up being 5 weeks).
I was told that my breasts would look “different” (deformed) for at least 4 weeks.
I was told it would take 6 months to a year to fully recover.
I was told I would feel discomfort and pain after the surgery.
BUT…and I do stress BUT, with all the instructions and information I was given, I was never told HOW MUCH pain I would have.
I was not told that I would wake up in the recovery room feeling as if a Mack truck rode across my breasts.
I was not told they were inserting these plastic grenade-looking apparati on each of my sides for 24 hours to catch the drainage from my breasts. These things filled up with bloody fluid and needed to be changed every four hours.
I was not told that riding in a car or later trying to drive my car would be absolutely excruciating. (After I was discharged, my aunt literally had to turn on her hazards and drive 5 miles per hour because I could feel every single rock, piece of gravel, and pothole she rode over. I honestly thought about filing a grievance with the town hall regarding their horribly paved streets and millions of potholes).
I was not told that jolts of electricity would shoot through my areolas every 5 minutes as my nerves and tissues reconnected.
I was not told that during the first 2 weeks after surgery, the top of my breasts would throb with so much pain that the only way to get through each day was to medicate myself with prescription narcotics.
I was not told nor was it suggested to strap a pillow around my breasts to avoid accidental bumps on wall corners, which by the way happened a lot because I was always walking around like a zombie, because I was high from the prescribed narcotics I was popping to numb my boob pain .
I was not told that I was going to have to develop ninja skills or cat-like reflexes to karate chop and block my grandson’s football tackles or people’s hugs when they visited.
Now to be fair, the plastic surgeon and his team could not tell me exactly what type of pain I would have, but they could have warned me about the possible pains that were lurking out there ready to snatch me up and hold me hostage. And I know everyone’s pain tolerance is different, and not everyone will experience the same type or amount of pain I did, and blah blah blah.
The bottom line is, breast reduction recovery HURTS. I’m not going to sugarcoat it for anyone. I was unprepared and completely naïve about how much it would hurt and perhaps that’s why I felt so blindsided. I think I was so excited about having the surgery, I didn’t think about the aftermath or anything else…well, I did think about the many cute tube-tops I would finally be able to wear, but that’s beside the point.
Despite the painful recovery, I am SO glad I got a breast reduction. They removed 3 pounds of breast tissue in total and I feel like a new person. My back no longer hurts, my bra straps no longer dig into my shoulders, I can shop outside of specialty stores (by the way, my new bra size is 44/46B, which is carried at mostly any clothing or lingerie store. It may be a “C” cup in other bra styles, but I’m okay with that too), I can jump up and down without getting black eyes, and most of all, my thunder is no longer being stolen from photos. When I look at myself in pictures, I can see me now and not just THEM.
So…with that said, take a look again at my “before” photo above the blog title, then look below at my “after” photos…BIG difference…pun intended.
Until we speak again…Smooches.
One week after surgery
Two months after surgery
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