Tag Archives: breast implants

the “after” pic

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I wasn’t going to write anything else about my boobs, because you know: this is starting to get a little weird. But, a LOT of people have asked about what my boobs look like now after the surgery.

Since I’m not going to post naked pictures of myself on the Internet (never ever, no no no), this will have to suffice for all of y’all who were curious.

Before:
Before Boobs

After:
After Boobs
Oh hello, awkwardly placed drawstring on my sweatpants, and glass of iced tea (which was on the bathroom counter & looks like it’s on top of my ass). Clearly I have crafted the fine art of the Boob Selfie over here.

They’re still pretty swollen and there’s a lot more “upper boob” (not sure what else to call it) than I’d like, but that’s supposed to settle down eventually so they’ll look more natural. But I’m really, really happy with them overall.

One brief moment of panic? The corner of one of my incisions had been hurting for a few days, and when I finally took the steri-strips off, I saw that it was red and looked possibly infected. I talked with the doctor and she said it’s something they see often. They stitch you up with a clear thread that’s supposed to just disintegrate and be absorbed by your body, but sometimes where the incision ends (where the thread is knotted, so there’s more of it), your body will think it’s a foreign object and try to, um, push it out. And it’ll get stuck. And possibly infected. And it hurts like a sonofabitch.

Let me just tell you that handing Chris a pair of sterilized tweezers and closing my eyes while he took care of it? Pretty much embodies my definition of “taking the intimacy in your relationship to the next level.” He’ll never see me poop on a delivery table (thank God for that), and I sincerely hope that this is as gross as it ever gets.

(He was totally calm about it. I was trying to fix it myself with a magnifying mirror, and he passed by the bathroom and was like, “Want some help with that?” And this was not exactly a “whee, boobies!” kind of moment, since it involved forcibly removing a foreign object from my body. But it takes a lot to rattle the man, I have to give him credit for that.)

Ok, I think that’s it for the boob chapter. Now back to boring blog posts about my kids and my boyfriend and all of that normal stuff.

a week later

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I don’t know exactly how much I want to get into the whole boob job recovery thing. Basically: I’m fine. I got my first shower on Saturday, and it was blissful.

As for my first impression of the new boobs? I knew they’d be swollen and higher than where they’re going to end up, but the first image that popped into my head upon seeing them: my boobs were shaped like Snoopy posing as a vulture.

vulture

It was a little freaky. But they’re starting to settle down now, and I had my one-week follow-up appointment with my plastic surgeon today. I’m following my doctor’s orders on not lifting anything heavy for the next few weeks and doing this whole boob massage thing to make sure no scar tissue forms around the implants (which causes hard boobs, and nobody wants hard boobs).

I also got to switch from the post-op surgical compression bra to a regular sports bra today, and my skin almost wept with relief. The elastic on that compression bra has been the worst part of my recovery. It rubbed my skin raw. Awful.

Not much else to report, other than the fact that I got a sinus infection immediately after surgery, because really? If you’ve just had your pectoral muscles sliced open? You totally want to do a lot of coughing and sneezing.

Dave is still in town, and he has Catie and Lucy with him – I’ve only seen them once in the past week, and I miss them like crazy. Being a single mom is exhausting, no doubt, but my life feels all weirdly thrown off when they aren’t here causing havoc. I’m grateful that Dave has been here so I could have this time to recover, but man, I can’t wait to squeeze their faces.

Sooooo…. yeah. I’m fine, the boobs are good, I miss my kids, I wish I could stop coughing. That’s about it, really. How are you?

boob jobbed

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So, the boob job? That was yesterday.

And I am… kind of ok? I think? I was expecting it to be a lot worse, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Thursday morning, Chris took me to the plastic surgeon’s office. They have an in-office surgical suite, no hospital stay required. Once the nurses brought me back, Chris left and went to work – his office is only a few miles from the doctor’s office, so the plan was that they’d call him while I was in recovery, he’d come collect me, get me settled at home, and my mom would come over to baby-sit me for the afternoon.

Most times that I’ve had some kind of procedure done, it’s always the waiting part that’s the worst. But Dr. Diehl (who I love, btw) only schedules one patient at a time, so there’s no waiting around. There were four women in the surgical suite: Dr. Diehl, her nurse, the anesthesiologist, and her assistant. And me (so I guess that makes five total). And that’s it. They got me changed into a gown, gave a pee sample (no, really, I swear I’m totally not pregnant), and started my IV.

I talked with Dr. Diehl about how we had discussed the size I wanted, but I was afraid of them being too big, so I asked her to use her judgment and go smaller if necessary because (in my oh-so-classy way of phrasing it), “I don’t want stripper boobs.” She said there would be four women in the OR, and that while I was still unconscious, she’d prop me up and everyone would give their opinion on whether or not they were the right size, evenly matched, needed a little tweaking, etc. Which sounds totally weird, but it was oddly reassuring. It’s not a case of “this size implant, shove it in, stitch up, done,” it’s more about everyone evaluating and giving their honest opinion on what would look best on my body. That made me calmer.

As soon as the IV was finished, I walked into the operating room and got myself settled on the table. I was talking with them about something – I don’t remember what – and I turned to the anesthesiologist and said, “Oh, you gave me the sleepy drugs, didn’t you? I can feel that.” That’s the last thing I remember.

The next thing I remember was Chris walking into the recovery room, which I thought was weird. I had assumed they’d wait for me to wake up before they called him, and it would take him at least 15 minutes to get there. Apparently they called him as soon as I was done, so he was there when I woke up. Which was nice. They gave him all of my stuff and told him to pull his car up to the front door, while they got me into a wheelchair.

The nurse asked if I needed anything, and I made an offhand comment about, “Man, I really want an iced tea.” (Mostly I wanted something cold on my throat after anesthesia, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get a caffeine-withdrawal headache.) When she was helping Chris get me into the car, she told him that I wanted an iced tea and gave him directions to the nearest fast food drive-thru where he could get one for me. (And he did, because he’s a good egg.)

I got home, crawled in bed, and slept for the next four hours. Eventually my mom came up to check on me and to try to get me to eat something. I got up and felt… sort of ok after that.

Chris came back after he finished work, and seriously, I couldn’t ask for a better nurse. He got me Chinese food for dinner (because that’s what I was craving), he cleaned the kitchen, he took out the trash and recycling, and he even scooped the cat’s litter box for me. Seriously, y’all, he’s good. (He also snuggled up with me on the couch and petted my hair while we watched TV, but he does that kind of thing regardless of whether or not I’ve just had surgery.)

When we went to bed, he made me promise that I’d wake him up if I needed to get up to pee, because he didn’t want me to try to get out of bed by myself. I initially scoffed at this (I am independent! I need no man’s help to use the bathroom!), but in the end, I did wake him up, partially because it’s hard to hoist yourself out of bed without using your arms (can’t push off anything, might strain the pectoral muscles), and also because painkillers make me dizzy and I was afraid of falling.

Today is ok. I was in a lot of discomfort when I woke up, but I’ve found that I feel better when I’m up and about – I think lying in bed makes the swelling and soreness worse. So I’m trying to stay sitting up as much as I can. And I’m regularly putting bags of frozen peas on my chest to help (which is weird). But I’m mostly ok.

And that’s it, I guess. Sorry for this being kind of long and rambly, but I’m writing it under the influence of Percoset, so there’s that.

P.S. I don’t have much to report on the results yet. I’m in a post-op surgical compression bra, and so far I’ve only unzipped it a little bit to peek. I haven’t really seen the new rack, but what I’ve seen so far is impressive. I get to take a shower tomorrow, so I’ll see the new girls in all their glory then.