Why Do All The Lights In My House Look Like Boobs?
The amount of options that are available to someone before and after having a preventative mastectomy are pretty expansive.
I had my consult with my breast surgeon in May. This was after rescheduling my original appointment from March 17th twice due to issues surrounding Covid. Anyway, I pretty much knew that after my mastectomy I definitely wanted reconstruction. But really that’s option one. To NOT get reconstruction and to remain flat for life. Nope. Not for me. I was a late bloomer who begged and prayed for boobies for a looooong time. Finally by the time I reached senior year of high school, I had settled into my current size of 36D. (After breastfeeding two babies, they are less full and less present where they are supposed to sit but they are still the same size.) So I want to remain that size. Or as close to it as possible.
I asked the doctor about possibly going slightly smaller. She said one way to do that is to have a breast reduction first so they can get the size and placement of the nipples in the right spot and then have a second surgery months later for the mastectomy. That means waiting a much longer time to remove the breast tissue and at this point I really just want it done and over with so not the best choice for me.
I fully weaned Bryce the end of May and it was recommend to me to wait six months to have surgery so there will be less of a chance of infection. I also need to have an MRI post weaning/pre surgery to make sure there is no Cancer present. If you do an MRI close to weaning, there’s a chance of a false positive, which could result in an unnecessary (and really scary to me) biopsy. So I decided I would rather wait to even do my MRI. So timeline looks like MRI in October and then hopefully surgery last week in November or beginning of December.
Back to options.…you can keep nipples or remove nipples. You can have two surgeries where first the breast tissue is removed and tissue expanders are placed in the skin. Over the course of a few months, you have fills with a needle into the front of the breast with saline to pump up the area and make it look more breast like again. Then you have a second surgery to switch out the tissue expander for an implant.
Direct to implant surgery is where it’s all done in one fell swoop. Breast tissue is removed and an implant is place all at once. This is what I hope to do. With young kids at home who need me, I want to have as few surgeries as possible. There is still a highly probable chance I will want to go back under for a lift after I’m all healed up but that should be a much easier surgery and not even necessary except for cosmetic reasons.
I need to decide if I want to keep my nipples or not. This whole time I’ve been leaning towards not but the first plastic surgeon I met with tried to convince me to keep them for various reasons. I’m in the process of trying to set up an appointment with a different plastic surgeon for a second opinion on that.
In my mind, my nipples did their thing. They fed my babies and now who needs them?? I’d rather be able to go bra less for life and not even think about it. So we shall see. The scars don’t bother me and the fact of not having nipples doesn’t bother me, either. Most women have no sensation on their chests at all after surgery anyway so meh. Whatever. I can always get 3D tattoo nipples later if I feel like I am missing something.
So decisions decisions. After I have my second opinion appointment, I will make the nipple decision.
Every single light in my house looks like a boob.…is that the universe’s way of telling me to keep them?!
Love and boobies,
Allison
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