Boob Talk

My husband unwittingly shared some information in his post.  It is no fault to him because he knew I was going to talk about it at some point, but I ran out of time before surgery came along.  I debated for some time whether or not to share about my breast reduction because of its very personal nature, however, I am trying to be as open as possible with the happenings in my life.  Also, after all that I have gone through so far, modesty with my breasts went out the window awhile ago.

I have had a love/hate relationship with my breasts.  I was happy that I was endowed, however, not happy that I was over-endowed.  I am/was an athletic person and my boobs were a hindrance while playing sports.  Also, I was suffering with back pain and seeing a chiropractor regularly for years.

Two and a half years ago, I opted to have a breast reduction.  Before my reduction I was a cup size "F" (that is not a typo...that is "F" as in F-REAL!  :)  ).  When I was pregnant with my second child, I was at my largest size "I".  I didn't know that those sizes existed until I got them!  The reduction brought me down to a "D" and I was happy with that.  The doctor actually wouldn't go any lower because he thought reducing them any smaller would affect the overall look after the healing.  I didn't share this with very many people because this was before my personal breakthrough of share myself with others.

Ironically, I am down to nothing...for now. I went from a "DD" to a training bra.  I will go into my recovery in another post.  Just yesterday they were able to add some fluid to my tissue expanders.  The expanders are quite hard and weird feeling to the touch but those will be removed eventually.  There is a port in the expander that is detected by magnet and then marked for the very large needle to be inserted.  Entering the expander port site feels much different from the chemo port site.  It felt more like a lot of pressure at the site and then as the fluid is being pushed in.  The chemo entry was much more of a stinking pain.  I don't like it either way, but will take the expander insertion over the chemo ones.  John was at the appointment and he said it looked like they filled each breast with about 50 cc of fluid which in other words he thought was a lot.  It doesn't appear to be a lot from the looks afterward.

I was debating on whether to go with a size "C" or "D" before all this happened.  John said my plastic surgeon decided to implant the larger size because most women with large breast have a hard time going down to a small size.  I find that hard to believe, but all in all it was the best decision because he doesn't have to fill then all the way up.  I can make the decision to go larger when that time comes.

Next Wednesday I go back to have my stitches removed and more fluids inserted.  Hopefully, there will be more normalcy after that happens.

I promise to make a post really soon about my recovery progress.  I hope tomorrow but had to make this post for clarification.