Boob-orama!

Sorry for the long absence. I’ve been kinda preoccupied. As many of you know I’ve been waiting for years to finally get a breast reduction, and it will happen 2 weeks from today. My hubs joking says it’s “slapping God in the face” but he’s not the one walking around with back pain, permanent dents in his shoulders, and trying to find clothes that actually fit. I have a closet full of clothes that haven’t fit me since the time BC – Before Children. Tops that gets stretched out of shape so badly that I can make a turtle-neck look slutty.

Small-breasted women don’t have to worry about that sort of thing. They can go to work and look professional wearing just about anything. I have to carefully choose each piece of clothing I wear, and have to wear cami’s under nearly everything so I don’t come across as a woman who sleeps her way through her career.

And I can’t just play with my children at the park either. Because my monster-boobs will shift out of their bra if I dare turn a cartwheel. And I can’t just chase my girls across the playground for a friendly race. The last time I did that I was in quite a lot of pain from the jumblies bouncing around.

I need to wear some extreme-support sports bras to be able to go for a jog. And even with the largest cup size I can find for my 32″ ribcage (which are F cups, by the way), sports bras give me “quad boob”, that boob-bulge at the front and sides. Frankly I get quad boob from my properly fitted, $200 each, “pretty” bras – which still look like something out of my grandma’s undies drawer.

For 9 years now, my boobs have hindered by ability to stay active, and have given me all sorts of pain. So, the prospect of being able to function without needing to think of boob-related contingencies is so exciting! You mean I can just “play” with my children? You mean my back won’t constantly hurt? You mean I can wear sassy clothes without distorted, stretched out graphics?

But though I’m excited about the impact of those things, the fact remains that I’m facing surgery. It’s about 1.5 hours procedure, and I’ll be back home the same day. When I had to have a hernia repair I was in tears on the gurney because of the fear of what was to come. Surgery is just scary, and this one is elective. So I struggle with the pre-op surgery anxiety, and find myself wondering if all those reasons are justified for the pain and recuperation ahead. It turns out that I would have been facing surgery anyways – during a mammogram last month they found a lump in my left breast that needs to be removed (cannot feel it doing a breast self-exam). It will come out at my reduction, but I shudder to think what would have happened had I waited 10 years to go for my first mammogram. So this is another example of how this surgery is going to change/save my life.

But still what I wouldn’t give for some Ativan to calm my nerves.