Let's Talk About Boobs!

I have been pretty lax in the "documenting" of my boob job. I will try to pick it up. Next week you should expect to hear a lot of, "Owie! My chest hurts!" Or something along those lines at the very least. 

I've had two appointments with my surgeon so far. The first was the consult where he told me how amazing I was, and then let me try on boobs. I was like a kid in a candy shop. I got to put on a stretchy bra and was then loaded up with implants to see about where they'd fall. We found my happy place with a full C cup. I'm a tall girl, so everything else just kinda stuck with the whole "looking kinda sad" category. He made me try a size bigger after that. WOAH! I'm not gonna lie, there was a tiny little part of me that clapped her hands and squealed, "ooh! Boobs!! They're HUGE!" But, the rest of me said, "Really Phoebe? You look ridiculous." So I politely asked to see the smaller size again.


Two days ago I had my Pre-Op appointment. My surgeon had been urging me to bring someone with me, but I don't really have anyone in San Francisco. I know maybe three people, all of them men, none of them know me like that, and... AWKWARD.
"Excuse me, would you like to come help me pick out my new rack?" HA!


So, I was all ready to go to my Pre-Op alone when I got a phone call from a guy I dated for maybe two months earlier this year. He was in town and wanted to get dinner Tuesday night. I said sure, would you mind going to my pre-op with me first? So... there I was. Getting my boobs measured with my ex. HA! It was nice though. I need someone to giggle with to get through difficult situations, so it was fantastic to have someone with a similar sense of humor to mine with me. Also, it was nice to have another set of eyes checking out the size of rack I was considering. My surgery is on Monday. That's four days from today. 


The week before the surgery isn't fun at all, I might add! My surgeon has cut me off from my four favorite food groups: Booze, Sugar, Carbs, and Salt. WTF?!?! I am dying here. Not only am I basically on a liquid diet of smoothies (I know fruit has sugar, I don't give a shit... it's not pasta), but I'm like an old lady with my pills. I take a HANDFUL of vitamins every morning and evening. And that's on top of my regular meds. Then I started a super Vitamin K pill yesterday, and will be adding two more pills on Sunday, and then the antibiotics. I feel like I should get myself one of those desk-sized pill organizers and organize them by color. 


The whole situation has been fairly smooth sailing. There have only been a couple snags. One of the snags happened when I noticed that my credit card had been compromised online last weekend. What?! For sixty dollars. Really?? You're going to make me disrupt my whole life over sixty fricking dollars on iTunes??? GAH! So I had to juggle around how I was paying for things and will just have to do a couple balance transfers later. But, whatever. No biggie. 


The other thing I had trouble with was arranging someone to pick me up. I am lucky in the fact that I have an awesome friend who will come pick me up and stay with me until my awesome roommate of awesomeness gets home to make fun of me and my bra of frozen peas. I probably won't notice as I will most likely be sleeping.


The office situation has been interesting. Most of the women know I'm going to get surgery. I told one person what procedure I was having done, and one of my favorite coworkers guessed it. It was really funny. She had to work up to asking me what I was getting done. Finally she blurted out, "Are you getting boobs?" HA! She, and just about everyone that knows me, is excited.


So, there's my update. Later on tonight, I'll share some of the things I had to consent to in order to get my boobs.

The Consult

Well, today's the big day. Well, more the "medium" day when you think about it; I'm only going to talk to the surgeon, not get on the operating table. I'm somewhat excited about the little road map that's going to be drawn all over my chest. I'm also hoping it'll come off easily, otherwise going to the gym might be a leeeeeetle embarrassing. Ha!

What have I had to do so far? Well, let me tell you:

• I have figured out how to pay for my boobs. With an awesome financing company for medical procedures and my super low-interest car loan (that I refinanced for more money but a lower payment and interest rate) I can afford LOTS of boobs. Not that I'm getting lots of boobs, but it's nice knowing I have boob options depending on how tonight's consult goes and what my doc recommends I do.
• I have had to spend a shit-ton of money on all sorts of vitamins. My doc suggests a vitamin regimen to be started a month before the procedure (started) and another one a week before the procedure (bought). Vitamins are not cheap. I feel like a little old lady. I take a handful of pills in the morning, and I take a handful of pills at night. On the plus side, these are good for me and I should just be happy that I'm on a healthy body regimen.
• I had to go online and fill out my patient intake forms. This office is fabulous and I can fill it all out online before my appointment to save me time and give me more time to talk about my future breasts with my surgeon.
• I've had to take time off work to recover from my boob surgery. Hopefully my surgeon will be able to do my boobs that week, otherwise I'll have to reschedule my time off and it would be the perfect week. My boobs would be all healed up before I go to Hawaii with my bookend + crew and I wouldn't have to worry about sore boobs while being forced to learn to surf.
• I was just about to crow over my eating right and exercising more so I won't be all nasty bloated right before my procedure, but a drug rep just brought us lunch and OMG is it amazing. I will now have to roll myself to my doctor's office. Oh well...

So far things have been going smoothly. I found it strangely easy to find the financing for my procedure, I'm not anxious about it at all. I feel like I should be; I am going to be put under anesthesia and cut open. But, I have no qualms. I have always felt like that though, I might be a little too trusting of doctors.

The most difficult thing I've had to deal with so far sprang up today. My coworkers started asking about why I'm taking a week off. They were being very polite about it and inquiring on if I was going on vacation. One (who had been told I needed the recovery time) thought I'd actually found a doctor who would give me a hysterectomy. I had to laugh at that; I might talk about wanting a hysterectomy, but I might end up wanting to use my uterus at some point. And I haven't met a doctor out there who would even consider giving a woman my age that surgery! They would laugh at me (and have). That, and I don't feel like getting put on hormonal therapy before I'm even 30. Ick! I told one girl what I'm actually doing, she probably won't tell anyone else, but it's going to be pretty obvious when I get to work. I have been strangely close-lipped about the procedure so I think that's what my coworkers are finding odd. Normally I tell them all about the stuff I'm up to, but all they know is I'm "having a procedure." Then they get worried and I have to tell them that I'm okay. Oh well, it'll all make itself obvious soon enough.

Okay, back to work. Update after tonight's consult

You're Doing WHAT???

There are a lot of reactions people have when they find out you have, or are going to have, a "boob job." I'm sure a lot of women have had a very difficult time coming to the point that they could go ahead and have the procedure done due to fears of what everyone would think of them. Contrary to popular belief, the pressure is to not get surgery. No one is running around demanding that everyone have amazingly huge and perfect breasts. Even if you have had physical changes to your body that make you very uncomfortable with yourself, people will push you to just be happy with you and who you are. While that is all well and good (and sound advice in many instances), most of the people who are telling you that haven't actually seen what it is that you're not happy with. I can guarantee you that every single person that has protested my decision has never, and I mean NEVER, seen my breasts. For all they know I could have a pair of tube-socks rolled up and stuffed into my shirt.

The first person I told I was really going to go through with it was actually one of the people I first lived with when I moved back to California. He happened to text me while I was researching surgeons. (My Evil Bookend was actually the first person I talked to about it, but she lives a few states away). He was really awesome about it and told me to go for it if I felt it would make me happy. He likes boobs too. Not all guys do. Most of the discussions I've had about boobs generally involve men preferring smaller boobs. Although, a good friend of mine's husband described it as a textural thing. He doesn't like big boobs because they're so fatty. I can understand that, small boobs are somewhat firm (most of the time). Firmness is almost a thing of the past when they've changed shape four or five times. Then you can start discussing elasticity and the lack thereof. You can also learn the "joys" of having small, but saggy boobs. Two things that you'd never think would be combined. *deep sighs*

While researching surgeons and facilities I made a post on my FB account about the fact that I could (and probably would) totally buy boobs for 4k. (I wasn't really going to go for the cheapest surgeon I could find, but the surgeon that had been recommended to me was having a special). There were over 70 responses on that thread. Most of the men stated it was a horrible idea. A large portion of the women were incredibly supportive and some stated they would do it if they could afford it. A few of my friends already have done it and stated they loved the results and if they went back in time they'd do it again. They also offered their opinions on the different types and what they preferred and had experienced. A couple women thought it was a crumby idea. One of my favorite people (and the one girl down here that knew me when I was full-sized) was sweet about it and told me it was "like I was cheating" because I was already "so pretty". That was actually very flattering. She's happily married so I know it's not because she wants to flirt with all the boys, she's just ridiculously honest and blunt. I like that in a person. You don't have to agree with me, just say what you actually mean.

I told my mother yesterday and her response was something along the lines of, "Oh good. I know you've always wanted them. You should get a nice C." My mom's a hippy by the way. She delivered all her children naturally with no pain killers, sings folk music, and you wouldn't look at her and think she'd be so supportive of something like that. Not that she's running around with a flower garland headband and living in a tent (anymore), but she seems pretty granola if you know what I mean. But that's just how my family is. One of my sisters has also fixed the deflated boob issue and while we all teased her about it, I definitely didn't see anything wrong with it. After all, she wasn't doing anything to my boobs, so what did it really matter?

Overall, I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from people. I did have to tell one person to please stop talking to me about it because he was bothering me and it really wasn't his decision. I love him dearly but he was acting like I was going to a back-alley surgeon to be cut up with a rusty scalpel. Another person I don't remember ever meeting kept e-mailing me the most random comments. He'd added me on FB and I assumed we'd met at least once but I just wasn't placing him. But I really don't think we have. He e-mailed me not to go too big. I told him I merely wanted shape, to which he seemed fine with, until two hours later he e-mailed me to beg me to think of my back as he knew a few well-endowed women with back problems. He then went on to suggest I wear a weighted bra for a couple weeks to see how it felt. I didn't even know who this guy was and he was assuming I wanted to get an H cup or something. Good Lord!

Why are these people e-mailing me about this anyway you ask? Well... I did put it on FB. I figured it would just be better to deal with it now and get it out of the way so we can all move on.

All this noise about my impending set of tits made me start thinking about a bigger picture than just me and my future boobs. If people are willing to say these sorts of things to me, the chick that sits around and talks about wanting boobs on a weekly basis, what do they say to other women when they're considering surgery? I'm pretty open, and really couldn't give a shit about what people think about me and my bustline. I like boobs and I want my boobs to be pretty, not saggy. But in the bigger picture, there's a lot of stuff that goes into this decision. It's already an emotionally charged decision, and women that are feeling sensitive and concerned over the surgery must feel incredibly pressured. They're hearing about how they're mutilating themselves because of "societies standards." They feel judged, they feel even more insecure about themselves than you could possibly imagine, and they're being made to think that by trying to do something to help themselves feel "feminine" or "pretty" they are going to get an unending stream of bullshit from everyone around them.  

When I spoke to the patient care coordinator I was somewhat confused with why she told me she thought it was so great that I called, blah blah blah. I initially thought that was standard with just trying to get me to buy tits. But then, thinking about how the last few days had been, I came to the conclusion that women are freaked out when they call these offices. The patient care coordinators aren't just trying to get you to buy boobs or noses or whatever else you're thinking about, they're trying to allow you to feel "okay" about the decision you made. It seems like the standard response to, "I'm going to have augmentation done on my breasts" is, "did you think about it?" I spent years thinking about this. I'm pretty sure every woman that's bought boobs put a lot of thought into it! Do you really believe we were just walking down the street one day and decided, "I think I'd like to buy a set of boobs today." We research surgeons, we look at costs, we read effing Yelp reviews for fuck's sake!

This whole experience has been incredibly interesting so far. The next step is the initial consult. My appointment is next Thursday and I am very excited to meet my surgeon and see what he thinks is appropriate.