Bye Bye Boobies

Today is a big day in my life.  I mean REALLY big.  Today, I am fulfilling a promise that long ago, I made to myself.  Today, I'm having breast reduction surgery.  Plain and simple.  A mammoplasty of major proportions.
A year ago I started to do battle with my insurance company. The same one that turned me down for a varicose vein repair. The same one that I know to have approved more "not medically necessary" procedures for clients I have dealt with, than I could possibly count.  When it came my turn, I got refused because I did not have sufficient evidence of it's necessity.  So, I spent the entire year breezing through my insurer's money.  I visited doctors of all specialties.  I began treatments with a chiropractor.  I itched, ached, tingled and numbed, all of course due to my breasts.  I made very sure this time that I had documentation and topped it all off with an Xray of my upper back which proved, beyond doubt, that there was no "pathology" and that my complaints were all due to the fact that I own heavy breasts.  There, it's out.  In case you never noticed, mine are large breasts.  I cannot say that they are out of proportion with the rest of my body.  It's not exactly a small body. But, I will say that their presence has prevented me from exercising and from doing what it needed to be done to make the rest of this body smaller.  Did you ever try yoga when you have large breasts?  They get in the way.  Tap dancing.  Wow!  It's painful.

There are so many problems associated with large breasts and I've lived with them for 64 years.  I never, ever had small perky breasts.  This, I blame totally on genes.  My mother, her mother and her sister all shared my problem.  Her sister died from breast cancer.  My mother had breast cancer.  I've already had a lumpectomy for what could have been a malignancy but God spared me.  Thus far.  Most women do not enjoy having mammograms because they find it painful to have their breast squeezed for the one second that it has to be.  I have lived with so many unpleasantries associated with my breasts, that I don't mind this at all.  What I do always dread is the time sitting in the hospital johnny gown, bra-less, waiting for my turn.  Okay if I'm the only patient.  Not okay with a room filled with normal sized breasted patients who don't look like mother cows without their bras!  Can't wait for my next mammo.  I'll sit there topless if I want to this time.

I have made my decision after a lot of thought.  Not all of my thinking has been based on vanity or even comfort.  I am on a personal campaign to attenuate some of the cancer risk factors that I have inherited.
My mother has had colon, breast and most recently, uterine cancer.  She's in Hospice care at the moment.
I'm diligent about my colonoscopies, mammograms, GYN visits and do all I can to try to beat the odds.
I can't go back and relive my life, I can't change my genes or heredity, but I can change my future or at least I can try.  Very simply, having less breast tissue might mean having less cancer growing space or at the very least, having more accuracy in early detection.  I'm already scheduled for a preventive total hysterectomy in the fall.  I'm truly a work in progress.  I owe this to myself, my mother, my children and grandchildren.

But then there IS the vanity part of this story.  I'm having my breasts made smaller so that I can wear pretty bras and can find them on the upper part of the bra rack in the stores.  In case you haven't noticed, the large sizes are always on the low racks so a big woman has to practically lie on the floor to find her size...if it even exists.  Short of that,one had to shop in a specialty store, where a clerk does the finding-of-the-size and the prices are top shelf.  Oh, just when you get a bra that feels good, fits well, and has all the right features, the manufacturer decides to make a few changes and your favorite....it's discontinued.  Why? Why????
Bathing suit shopping is another nightmare.  If I find one that allows my anatomy to stay put, I hold on to it for years and years until the straps start to lose their tone and I show up at the beach looking like a saggy baggy camel.  Not a pretty sight. But this summer, it will be different.  This summer, I will have my choice of swimwear, not from the bottom rack.

Oh, and one more thing.....sorry guys but the show is over.  I'm done with being the object of your cheap thrill. You'll have to start looking at my eyes.  Of all the good reasons for my choice, your gross and obvious stares will end.  I'm not wearing any more of those "hide" the breast shirts.  I'm wearing what I damned well please and you will not make me feel uncomfortable ever again.  Find someone else.  Especially YOU, you know who you are....you are the "gentleman" who everyone thinks of as "gentlemanly" just because you are Italian. I can hardly wait to see your eyes when we meet again.  I should have spoken up sooner but instead, I outfoxed you, you old fox.  Now you can focus on your wife's "rack".  I'm just a little old pancake and I'm loving it.  Had my surgery on Thursday and I already feel like a brand new woman.  I'm lovin' it and I'm thanking God every minute.  A good husband, a good surgeon, wonderful nurses and a healthy body that's healing well at the moment.  Bye bye boobies.  Amen.