I look for other flat chested women. A rant.
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After many years of checking this topic as a listener/silent reader, I'm writing to introduce myself.
I've lived for 25 years without breasts, reconstruction or prostheses. My decision to live as I have has been medically helpful.
Just wanted to drop by to say hi - my home is in the Stage IV and metastatic section, but I'll "favorite" this topic and drop in once in a while.
Best wishes for all, Stephanie
P.S. I've always dressed beautifully and going flat has been just another fashion challenge.
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Stephanie you are so good to say hi, I can see from your signature that you are dealing with so much. Best wishes to you. Susanna
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**waving to Stephanie** Welcome.
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Hi beautiful ladies! A question: have any of you noticed that your chests are extremely bony/ lumpy without breasts? One of my ribs is so messed up looking you can see the lump even through a sweatshirt! Just wondering what your experiences are and any fashion tips you may have. Thanks!!!
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Hi LBF yes I have a protruding bit too. Onco said radiation can cause skin thickening but I also have a theory that cutting through chest muscle can cause ribs to swing outwards. Then of course there 's always the joys of lymph fluid looking for somewhere to go. I have found that gypsy tops can look nice. (Not the super-tarty ones) The ones that have a lot of gathered material and most especially the ones that have a kind of pelmet of extra material.
Like this, but worn with the sleeves up (not off the shoulder the way the model has them)
or the kind that doesn't have a pelmet, but has a lot of gathers
They look very pretty and don't hug the lumpy bumpy bits.
If you don't like gathered sleeves you can unpick the elastic in these. I know as I unpick the sleeves on these type of tops for my super-slim 10 yo DD. She just doesn't like elasticated sleeves.
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And another.
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Yes, I have lumps and concavities, sometimes visible through a shirt.
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BTW it would be even better if I looked like those models
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I have lumps, but I don't think they show thru a sweatshirt. I have to have wider T-shirts, which are getting hard to find. My thickest part is thru the middle, so tight tapered t-shirts look awful.
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Bingo, me in a tight tapered t-shirt
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I tend to buy "mens" tee shirts instead of womens for that reason,,, often women's are just too tapered for me. Also I believe that Land's End has different styles,, more tapered,, wider,,, tee shirts and polo type shirts. My left side is definitely bony,,except for the damn excess skin my BS left. I have to wear a breast binder and Swell Spot for my chest LE, so my problem is more along the lines of trying to disguise the bulges that those things cause.
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I've had a double mastectomy and no reconstruction. I go flat-chested at home and for running to my neighborhood grocery store, but I wear foam breast forms when I dress up for church or other events. My issue is that I really WISH the good lingerie and bra companies would start manufacturing comfortable mastectomy bras that are low cut and sexy, and have soft foam padding (built-in forms) that fill the entire bra cups, like the push-up and push-in styles only filling the ENTIRE cups...not removable. I have a beautiful Victoria Secret double-lined low-cut black bra that I cut a hole in the inner lining to slide my foam breast forms into. But of course the lining fabric is concave and is wrinkled next to my chest skin. I think there would be a HUGE market for a bra like that, because the majority of women who have mastectomies don't get reconstruction, contrary to what most people believe. Sorry...just ranting!
I would really prefer not to have to use removable breast forms. 0 -
HI there,
actually, I do prefer not to have to use removable breast forms, too. And on top of that I hate having to wear a bra. So I don't and go flat. ;-)
Your problem could be solved, too. There are those soft and light breast forms you get right after surgery. You could sew these into the bra of your choice yourself or have the shop selling mastectomy bras and forms do it for you. They usually have someone who does sewing to achieve a perfect fit. And there even are pockets you can sew into normal bras to be bought and fittet, but I guess if you take out the foam of a push-up you could slip the light forms right in. I don't know how long this construct would take to dry after washing, though.
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I'm with you girl! I'm quite happy being flat and I do find myself looking for compadres. With prosthesis it's hard to know , we may have sisters everywhere and not even know it!
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There are many many sisters out there!!
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Hello, new to this group, but thought you might have advice. I do flat most of the time, but am now 4 months out of radiation and trying the stick on boobs again. I had success with just one when I had the implant still there on my left. Had a lump on my implant (recurrence) in the fall so said I was done with boobs.
Anyway they took out the left implant and I had this tiny fat pocket, it seems to be getting bigger....should I be concerned?
My right side has always been pretty bony. The TE never worked over there. Was septic at one time then a year later tried hyperbaric and another implant which failed two times.
Thanks for any help and have a great spring day
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I must look at this differently. I'm newly flat after a lifetime of large. I'm looking forward to wearing all the styles that never looked good on me with a larger bosom. I did not go double mast as a preventative procedure - I did it for symmetry. I'm choosing not to have painful, long healing reconstruction.
The hospital's patient resource counselor was telling me where I could get properly measured and which shop takes my insurance. I off handedly remarked that I wouldn't be using them every day but it never hurts to have a pair in the closet, in case I need to fill out a dress.
She made me repeat that twice. Seems normal to me. I mean, you never know when a certain dress/gown may be appropriate and it may be a style better suited to bosoms. I'm not going to buy all new clothes that hide/accentuate my new, flatter figure. It just makes sense to me to have some bosoms around if I need them to fill out a dress.
I used to be fat and happy, now I'll just be flat and happy.
cb
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CB, I totally get that!! There are many on here that do just exactly that.
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Thanks Glennie,
I go through this alone and I never know if I'm doing something completely out of the ordinary or if I'm just as normal a the next guy. Until I came back to this group, I only had input from medical professionals and I honestly don't think like they do about so many things. They are constantly looking at me sideways about something.
cb
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cb that makes total sense (what you said to the hospital counselor). Sometimes I wonder do people in these positions get much input from former mx patients who have finished the time being a patient and are out living their lives. They are meeting so many women who have just been mx-ed. They may not even have awareness of the many many different ways women live with and without foobs or recon and then they are advising women from that limited viewpoint.
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Sometimes I think I should sit in the surgeon's office, or MO's office and say Flat is FAB! Don't be talked into recon that you don't want to do.
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Dear flat-chested friends,
Welcome to the newcomers!
I'm glad to see this topic revived.
I've lived without breasts or prostheses for over 25 years. When making my own choices, I was very influenced by the Black Lesbian-Feminist poet Audre Lorde who included her essay, 'Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis', in her collection 1980 The Cancer Journals:
After a mastectomy, for many women including myself, there is a feeling of wanting to go back, of not wanting to persevere through this experience to whatever enlightenment might be at the core of it. And it is this feeling, this nostalgia, which is encouraged by most of the post-surgical counseling for women with breast cancer. This regressive tie to the past is emphasized by the concentration upon breast cancer as a cosmetic problem, one which can be solved by a prosthetic pretense. The American Cancer Society's Reach for Recovery Program, while doing a valuable service in contacting women immediately after surgery and letting them know they are not alone, nonetheless encourages this false and dangerous nostalgia in the mistaken belief that women are too weak to deal directly and courageously with the realities of our lives.
The woman from Reach for Recovery who came to see me in the hospital, while quite admirable and even impressive in her own right, certainly did not speak to my experience nor my concerns. As a 44 year old Black Lesbian Feminist, I knew there were few role models around for me in this situation, but my primary concerns two days after mastectomy were hardly about what man I could capture in the future, whether or not my old boyfriend would still find me attractive enough, and even less about whether my two children would be embarrassed by me around their friends.
My concerns were about my chances for survival, the effects of a possibly shortened life upon my work and my priorities. Could this cancer have been prevented, and what could I do in the future to prevent its re-occurence? Would I be able to maintain the control over my life that I had always taken for granted?
Later in her story:
Ten days after having my breast removed, I went to my doctor's office to have the stitches taken out. This was my first journey out since coming home from the hospital, and I was truly looking forward to it. A friend had washed my hair for me and it was black and shining, with my new grey hairs glistening in the sun. Color was starting to come back into my face and around my eyes. I wore the most opalescent of my moonstones, and a single floating bird dangling from my right ear in the name of grand asymmetry. With an African kente-cloth tunic and new leather boots, I knew I looked fine, with that brave new-born security of a beautiful woman having come through a very hard time and being very glad to be alive.
I felt really good, within the limits of that grey mush that still persisted in my brain from the effects of the anesthesia.
When I walked into the doctor's office, I was really rather pleased with myself, all things considered, pleased with the way I felt, with my own flair, with my own style. The doctor's nurse, a charmingly bright and steady woman of about my own age who had always given me a feeling of quiet no-nonsense support on my other visits, called me into the examining room. On the way, she asked how I was feeling.
"Pretty good," I said, half-expecting her to make some comment about how good I looked.
"You're not wearing a prosthesis," she said, a little anxiously, and not at all like a question.
"No," I said, thrown off my guard for a minute. "It really doesn't feel right," referring to the lambswool puff given to me by the Reach for Recovery volunteer in the hospital.
Usually supportive and understanding, the nurse now looked at me urgently and disapprovingly as she told me that even if it didn't look exactly right it was "better than nothing," and that as soon as my stitches were out I could be fitted for a "real form."
"You will feel so much better with it on," she said. "And besides, we really like you to wear something, at least when you come in. Otherwise it's bad morale for the office."
And:
I am talking here about the need for every woman to live a considered life. The necessity for that consideration grows and deepens as one faces directly one's own mortality and death. Self scrutiny and an evaluation of our lives, while painful, can be rewarding and strengthening journeys toward a deeper self. For as we open ourselves more and more to the genuine conditions of our lives, women become less and less willing to tolerate those conditions unaltered, or to passively accept external and destructive controls over our lives and our identities. Any short-circuiting of this quest for self-definition and power, however well-meaning and under whatever guise, must be seen as damaging, for it keeps the post-mastectomy woman in a position of perpetual and secret insufficiency, infantilized and dependent for her identity upon an external definition by appearance.
When the ACR Reach to Recovery volunteer came in with prostheses, a book and arm exercises, I refused the first, but kept the next two. The book was Michael Lerner's Choices in Healing. It changed my life in 1991 and in 1992, I was able to attend the Cancer Help Program he co-founded at Commonweal in Bolinas, California. http://www.commonweal.org/program/commonweal-cancer-help-program/ I honestly don't believe I would have lived so long or so well without that life-saving book. Prostheses though? I could and have live without them.
If you're a reader who hasn't read Lorde, I encourage you to find her work. The Cancer Journals and A Burst of Light contain important stories of her life with breast cancer. She died in 1992 after 14 years with breast cancer. She is dead, but not forgotten, by so many whose lives she touched with her beautiful, clear and honest writing and being.
Much love to the new generation, Stephanie
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Hello Stephanie,,,, lovely to see you here. Thanks for posting those words of Audre Lorde,,, gone but definitely not forgotten.
I especially loved the part about the asymmetrical earrings,, I feel that could become part of me,,, one extra hole on the right side!
I was inspired by a woman who had a single MX and had a vine tattooed over her scar. Was to do that myself, but I developed LE and tattooing the chest would be a bad idea now. Must see if I can find that pic and post it here.
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Found it,,, Deena Metzger. If you go to this link, and scroll down you will see the pic. It's the black and white photo, Tree poster.
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Hi Glennie,
So lovely to see Mary Bryson of No More Potlucks linked from here.
Did you take the time to see the tattoos her breastless chest and to watch the video with Chase Joynt?
It's a stunning exploration of gender diversity.
Also, a 2001 film comes to mind, Southern Comfort about a transman who dies of ovarian cancer. Puzzle that out.
Though I identify as female, because of breast cancer my breasts are gone and my female organs too. Eight years of hormonal manipulation including estrogen, testosterone and aromatase inhibitors have taught me more about gender fluidity than any college course or research study could...yet, I value that approach too.
Am trying to find the very beautiful videos from Mary's project http://www.lgbtcancer.ca
Ah, here they are https://queercancer.wordpress.com/stories/
Warmest healing wishes and good to meet you, Stephanie
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I had that Deena Metzger poster on the wall in my college room in 1979. I think I bought it at Giovanni's Room in Philadelphia.
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Hi Stephanie,
My how far we've come. I was looking at some articles on immunotherapy last week and felt such hope for the future and The Millennials in particular. I cried with hope thinking that mine may be one of the last generations to be have to be disfigured in this way in the name of cancer and for all those lovely young people who may never have to know what we know. Someday our trials with this disease will be just so much history of how treatment has progressed. And we all dealt with it as best we could.
cb
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Hi SharonS:
If you've noticed a change on the left, do not hesitate to have it checked out. If it is of no concern, you will be relieved. Do you think the stick-on form might be aggravating it or did you notice it changing before using them again?
BarredOwl
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I enjoyed being reminded of Deena Metzger - still writing after being diagnosed at the age of 40 in 1977 and surgery her only treatment. I also was inspired by her tattooed image and bought a few postcards of it to use as bookmarks after my first mastectomy. Her story of how she nearly had reconstruction after her mastectomy is interesting - mentioned in this piece: http://deenametzger.net/the-soul-of-medicine/.
I've thought about a tattoo as well but for various reasons (e.g. what image would I want and would I still like it as time goes on?, LE risks) haven't gone ahead. I keep meaning to play with some temporary transfers.
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Spotted another at the oncology center yesterday - she made her way like a beautiful ship through the waiting room, her form visible to all in a tank top.
Earlier at the acupuncturist's office a tall, thin, graceful woman sported a bald head with a henna tattoo swirling out from her hair whorl - beautiful. Frail and beautiful both.
When bald from chemo, I didn't get a henna tattoo, but before my hysterectomy, I did. It was so empowering to make ritual and honor the transition.
love, Stephanie
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