Warning: If you do NOT want to read about breasts, titties, fun jugs, boobs, or anything like that, I advise you to skip this entry.
Trigger Warning: Cancer and infertility, if those might upset you, please skip this as well.
Exactly a week from today, I will be getting breast reduction surgery. No, I will NOT be posting topless pictures or anything like that, so if you were expecting that, just go away.
This entry is in case anyone else wants to know about breast reduction. I know when I decided to get breast reduction, I literally read every single post on the reduction reddit, googled breast reduction stories constantly, and just wanted as much information as possible, so I hope if anyone else is in the same boat that I was, this entry can help them or encourage them even a little bit like reading other people’s stories encouraged me.
So this is really just the pre-entry, since the actual surgery is next week… the sort of why behind it.
I’ve always had big boobs. They weren’t so big that they were uncomfortable, for awhile I was fine with them. They didn’t really give me any back trouble or anything. I was probably about a size D-DD when I graduated college and for several years after college.
I’ve read some really negative things about “bigger” girls who get breast reduction on the internet. I’m more of a “fluffy” girl, I suppose. But I can still ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at Universal Studios Florida, in a regular seat, I can still fit into one seat on a plane. I’m also an active person. I’m a special-ed PreK teacher and believe me when I tell you I NEVER sit down throughout the day. I also like to run, swim, and lift. I love hiking and skiing [though living in Texas isn’t conducive to those activities, at all]. So fuck you trolls on the internet… not all “fluffy” girls are lazy and getting surgery because they’re too lazy to lose weight themselves.
In 2014, my life changed. It didn’t change in a wonderful way either. I got fucking cancer. It started when I was bleeding for about seven months. It was heavy bleeding too. There were clots the size of my hands. Nothing helped it. I bled so much that I became extremely anemic. At first I thought maybe it was miscarriage or something, but when it persisted for more than a few days, I knew something was up. I went to my gynecologist, who thought maybe it was a reaction to being off birth control for awhile when my body was so used to being on birth control and had been for years. She prescribed heavy birth control pills for me, but they didn’t stop the bleeding either. I went for an ultrasound and everything, and nothing showed up that was abnormal. In February 2014, after I had basically been bleeding heavily since the end of July 2013, she decided to do a D&C and a laparoscopy to see what was up with my body. They thought maybe it was fibroid or polyp or something.
Sure enough, they found a polyp and removed the polyp and sent it off for testing. The results came back within two days. I had uterine cancer. It was really early uterine cancer, like basically stage zero, I wouldn’t need radiation or anything like that, I just needed a hysterectomy and an oophorectomy. I was SUPER young for this type of cancer. The average age for woman, who get diagnosed with uterine cancer is 60, it is EXTREMELY uncommon in woman under 45, I was barely in my 30s.
My husband and I weren’t even married then, we were just engaged, and we were just told we might never have children. We went through two IVF cycles after I was diagnosed with cancer. We got ten mature eggs from me, and we made them into embryos. Out of the ten, only four fertilized, and only one made it to blastocyst stage, we froze it and hoped we could find some way to have it later in life.
We didn’t have time to do another IVF cycle because the oncologist wanted to do the hysterectomy as soon as we could before the cancer could spread.
Unfortunately that will never happen because today, we got the results back from the genetic testing of our embryo, and it wasn’t a viable embryo. It would’ve been a boy, but it was missing the 8th chromosome, and would not have resulted in successful implantation. We’re hoping to use a donor egg to try to make more embryos and will hopefully have more than one viable blastocyst, and then hopefully finding a gestational carrier, as well as a way to pay for all that, but that’s a story for another entry, I suppose.
Anyhow, I got the surgery. The hysterectomy went fine. Everything went fine. I’ve been cancer free for four years now. But my body went to complete shit after the hysterectomy. Since they removed my ovaries, my body went into instant menopause. I’ve gained 60 lbs, the endocrinologist can’t figure out why. I’m sure a lot of it is genetic, but also since I went into menopause, my metabolism just slowed the fuck down. I also have horrible insomnia and never sleep through the night, which is also a factor for weight gain. I really don’t eat unhealthy, I exercise as much as I can, and I lead a decently active life-style, I just lost the genetic lottery. Oh and I get hot flashes thanks to menopause, and let me tell, you hot flashes are seriously the worst possible thing ever, especially when Texas is already like a giant hot flash, every single day.
But the biggest change is my boobs went from a nice D/DD to a fucking G. That happened as a result of my cancer. The estrogen in my body freaked out and didn’t know where to go since everything was gone, so the only place for it to go was my boobs and that’s why they grew. They grew as a result of my cancer.
My boobs make me fucking miserable. I have trouble exercising because no sports bra or bathing suit successfully holds them in. They’re so heavy that they practically sag to my waist. My back and neck are constantly hurting. I get migraines. They’re so big that it looks like I don’t even have a torso, so clothes look awkward on me because they don’t fit my body right and I have to buy everything extra baggy just for them since they’re so big they shorten shirts. They’ve killed my self-esteem. They make my job a living hell because I have an active job, I’m always lifting little kids, changing diapers, restraining kids to stop them from self-harming themselves [again, I’m a special ed teacher, and I have certification to do these things in a safe manner so nobody gets hurt]. I constantly get fungus infections under them and on them because they’re so big and heavy and they sweat so much.
This year was the year I decided to get a breast reduction.
I asked around on nextdoor, which is sort of like Facebook for neighborhoods for a recommended plastic surgeon. Got one, made an appointment, liked him, that was that. My insurance wouldn’t cover the surgery just because breast reduction isn’t covered regardless if it’s medically necessary or not, my insurance just doesn’t cover it, therefore I’m paying out of pocket.
I told the doctor to take out as much as he can safely take out. He estimates I’ll be between a high B and C. He said I probably should’ve had breast reduction done years ago, but it took me a long time to actually say yes to it.
This surgery isn’t going to be a walk in the park either. It’s going to be hell. I mean think about it, they’re basically taking a part of my body apart and putting it back together again. I’ve spoken to friends who have had it, and they’ve told me the first week will be absolute hell. And my smaller boobs won’t even look like boobs, they’ll look like Frankenboobs with stitching, drains, bleeding, bruising, and swelling. I won’t even be able to take care of myself for a few days.
I’m extremely anxious and it’s irrational anxiety. Like I’m worried I’m doing to die when I’m under general anesthesia and never wake up from the surgery even though the chances of that are like 1:100000. And I realize that that’s really irrational, but that doesn’t stop my brain from thinking it and from being nervous. I’m worried about the pain. I know it’s going to be bad.
But I also know that a month or so from now, I’ll be so happy with my decision to have this surgery, and hopefully some of my self-confidence will come back and hopefully life will be less painful.
At this time next week, hopefully I’ll have more to say, hopefully I’ll have survived the surgery.
Anyways if anyone has any questions or anything, feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading, if you did.