my foobs and I…an update

Let’s see…where to start. I have been wearing my foobs some. I didn’t even take them when I went out of town, so there was a stretch of time that I didn’t even touch them. The biggest reason I didn’t take them when I went on my trip was because they were bothering me…ok, hurting…and I just didn’t want to mess with them. And they wouldn’t fit in my suitcase. But mainly the first one.

So recently I’ve had a renewed interest in trying to wear them. But as I said before, they can make me sore. Everything makes me sore. (more on that later) But I’d worked on trying to wear them. I’d have a good day followed by several bad days and it was just disheartening.

I came to the point a few weeks ago of wondering if I’d ever wear them at all. I had to deal with ‘self esteem” and how society views women. It was hard. But I began to see my value and my beauty more from the eyes of God rather than from the eyes of people, and in His eyes, I am beautiful and whole, even though to mankind’s eyes, something is missing. Realizing that has carried me a long way.

But a hard reality is that ladies clothes are not made for a girl that is a D, which I was previously. Nor are they made for a girl that doesn’t have breasts…because either they are low cut, which shows my uneven contours, or they are thin fabric which also shows my uneven contours. (I have started to invest in a few tops that have a busy pattern on them because it helps hide that sort of thing).

Thursday I went back to my plastic surgeon. I was overdue to see her for my last visit and have pictures made. Yep..pictures. In all my flat glory. I decided at the spur of the moment to wear ‘the girls’. And of course, when I had to take them off, she could see them on the chair with my top.

So the conversation began.

And I learned some things I wish I had known from the git go. I learned I am in the “infancy” of my recovery and pain is to be expected since I have scar tissue mixed in with my muscles. Nice, huh?! So that helped explain the soreness that followed the pattern of work out, get sore, rest, get better, wear the bra and foobs, get sore, rest, get better. It was obvious the pain was connected, but still very disheartening when I *expected* to just get used to them and wear them. (I also expected to push hard at working out and progress quickly and that hasn’t happened either..sigh!) So at least I had my feelings validated on that. But I wish I had known that right away so it would have been expected, rather than a frustrating surprise.

She told me the door is still open for reconstruction and that many of the issues I’m having now would be resolved. Implants are much softer than what I’m wearing in my bra now. I know because she told me…and because I touched the samples when I was in the room by myself. That was also eye opening for me. Her other option was to go back to the bra/prosthetic store and talk to them. Maybe a different bra or a different insert would help. So I went over there after my visit and we discussed more options. There are some training wheel prosthetics, for girls that have just had their surgery. They are foam with a fabric cover instead of silicone and much softer and lighter weight. So they are going to order some for me in a couple of sizes and I’ll go back and try those on and see what I think. They might be the stop gap measure I need to get me over the hump until I get all this scar tissue broken up that’s in my chest. (just typing that makes me hurt!)

Another thing about the implants is I really don’t want another surgery..or two..as the case may be. I am just getting started on exercising etc and I don’t want to mess with any of that.

But the implants are on the table so to speak. I have been wearing my prosthetics more since my appointment and I’m doing fairly well with them. So perhaps they will level out soon and then the implants won’t be an issue anymore. We will see.