I look for other flat chested women. A rant.
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After I started this thread, folks started telling me that they asked for flat and got skin sparing mastectomy, asked for straight scars and got curved scars, that their doctors did not listen to or abide by their desired outcome. Like myself, many women are asked to see a psychiatrist if they choose not to reconstruct and wanted symmetry. And that doctors seem to think follow up surgeries to fix this and that are par for the course.
And then too, I hear of women who would like A sized reconstruction and are told this is not possible. Or they are encouraged to 'go larger'.
At the same time, I see transexual female to male top surgery that is pretty damn nice looking.
It seems to me that a lot of malpractice happens in the breast cancer community, but that each person learns to accept their result without speaking out about it. If I could only change the whole world, I would rip the lid off this!
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Can you imagine the lawsuits if women were going to a plastic surgeon for breast augmentation and they asked for Ds and got As? And if the doc just shrugged and said, "that's what we thought looked best on you".
Can't believe no one speaks up when it's the other way around.
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I could feel a fit of foot stomping come upon me!!!
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You rock Melanie!
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I told my plastic surgeon to "make me as flat as a 10 year old boy", which got a laugh; apparently it was very descriptive. She did tell me there was a chance it may be concave depending on how my anatomy looked after they got in there, but it turns out I had enough muscle and non-breast tissue--okay, fat--so everything turned out nice and flat and not concave.
We had a long discussion about what to do with the nipples as I'd been hoping to avoid having to do grafting; the 'nipple sparing' method, she said, might leave me with puckering or a permanently erect nipple, neither of which I wanted, so we elected to go with free grafting as my BMX was preventative and I hadn't (yet) developed any cancer (after about 3 weeks, they look great and are nice and pink, which is a surprise as they used to be brown! She warned me they sometimes change color though.).
Right now, I'm not quite three weeks out so I'm a little bit swollen and it looks like I have tiny pecs due to the remaining swelling, but under a shirt it looks as flat as I told her to make it.
I have no intentions of ever wearing a bra again, let alone any prosthesis, I just found I honestly don't miss having breasts one bit.
For me, that may stem from the fact that my breasts, from the time they came in around age 9, were always painful, like constant stabbing, burning pain, and over the years it just got worse and worse and worse which I found out was due to a lot of fibroids, fibrous tissue, and calcium deposits, but I went from age 9 to 35 thinking it was 'normal' because that's what everyone told me and nobody really properly listened that it wasn't just pain/tenderness that went along with my cycle. I finally put my foot down last year as it was getting worse and to the point that I couldn't manage it with OTC painkillers and 'putting it to the back of my mind' and was affecting relationships as I couldn't stand to be hugged or touched or even sleep in a way that put pressure on them.
Now that they're gone the chronic pain I've had all those years is gone and I'm beyond relieved and happy and if someone else doesn't like the fact that I have a flat chest now...well, that doesn't matter.
My husband doesn't care (and if he did, we'd have some strong words that would probably end in -vorce
), he's just glad the pain and cancer risks are gone and has noticed that I'm a lot happier, even with the mild healing from surgery pain, than I ever was when I had my old DDs.
Since I never had a good relationship with them, so to speak, I wasn't at all sad to see them go and was actually incredibly excited for my surgery and was looking forward to it. I'm not super pleased that it took finding out I was at a high risk for developing breast cancer, but that at least meant I had a "valid" medical reason for having them removed.I've been super happy with how all my clothes fit now; shirts that never fit quite right due to my breasts fit perfectly now, I don't have 'popped button syndrome' on button down shirts (and don't have to wear ones that are too large everywhere else to compensate), I've been surprised how much I enjoy my shoulders being free of straps, most people don't even notice the flat chest and if they do I can't honestly say I'd care as their opinion of my body is irrelevant.
Some co-workers who didn't know I'd had surgery have done double-takes while passing me or when chatting with me for the first time in a couple of weeks, but have said nothing as there's not really an HR appropriate way to ask about it, but otherwise I haven't noticed any stares, weird looks, or anything of the like. I was pretty open with the team I work on about what I was having done and they knew in advance, so I'm sure that helped there.
The only thing I don't like is the fact that my breasts kind of balanced out my slight gut and now that they're gone I have broad shoulders, a flat chest, and what looks like a kind of small beer belly. I'll have to work on that once I'm cleared to do exercise more intense than walking.
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amw, good for you. I hope you just keep feeling better and better.
I'm sure many of us know about the balancing that the breasts give for our fronts line. I was looking at myself sideways in the mirror this morning and thought, "When I had breasts this belly was not noticeable." Motivation to watch diet and exercise just a bit more.
We can do it!
moo
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Thanks!
I got a better post-surgical binder today and that's helped quite a bit in terms of comfort. The hospital gave me these velcro tube tops that kept slipping around and didn't really compress anything unless I stuffed them with pads. They felt kind of like they were more geared toward women who were having reconstruction or for breast reductions/augmentations as opposed to providing any compression at a level to help with swelling. They fit a bit like a medium support sports bra.
I ordered a gynecomastia post surgical vest from Underworks that has a hook and eye front closure system so it's easy to get on and off; it also compresses better under my arms and one of my incisions goes pretty far under the arm as the breast on that side was larger and had more tissue off to the side. It has a slight bonus of also tucking my tummy in a bit but, sadly, that flattening won't be permanent!I know I can take the weight off again, the extra 20 only came on after they tried me on Abilify last fall and I put on 20lb in 15 days which is a rare side effect of that medication; they pulled me off of it as staying on with that rapid level of weight gain was an early sign that the medication may make me develop diabetes, but I've been sort of lazy about getting that 20lb back off. I've lost 7lb since surgery, and have been playing a lot of Pokemon Go (I know, I know...:)) which will hopefully keep that downward trend going. In all seriousness, that dang game got me up and off the couch to play while I still had my drains in; that's some motivation!
Belly or not--my husband joked that I now looked like I was maybe 3 months pregnant with 'the ballasts' gone, and the other part of his joke was that he looked like he was having triplets--I'm still loving the lack of breasts in terms of how my clothes fit, though I may have to shy away from some of my more fitted shirts until I take care of the belly.
As a bonus, my husband has said he wants to work out with me when I'm able to start again as he could stand to lose a few pounds as well (his words, I think he's fine as is). Two more weeks and I'll be cleared to walk the dogs again, which will help a lot as I tend to walk faster when I have the dogs with me, and will be clear to ride the bicycle again.
For me, it's even been great looking in the mirror front facing and to the side, I just love how it looks even though the scars are still fresh, things are still a little swollen, and a bit puckered and the grafts are healed but still settling in. Can't say I'd call mine 'battle scars' as they came about because I was trying to avoid having to have that 'battle' to begin with, maybe more big ol' warning signs not to mess with me.
I did wait until all the stitches were out and the top layer of dead skin had sloughed off the grafts before showing my husband as he's pretty adverse to 'gory' looking injuries and was pretty clear that he didn't want to see the grafts until the dead skin was gone, but he's seen it now; I asked if he wanted to and his response was, "If you're ready for me to see."
Walked around the house shirtless for awhile after that, and his response was, "It looks about how I expected after what you told me, and you look great!"
He's right too, I look just as great as I did when I had a pair of DDs, and anyone who disagrees is free to keep their mouth shut about it.
Away from clothing and appearance, I'm also looking forward to about the 8 week mark when I've been told it's okay to let a cat (or two) sleep on my chest again. One of ours likes to sleep there but I couldn't ever let her lay there for too long as it hurt. Now that they're gone and it's flat, she'll be able to comfortably snooze on my chest and I'll be able to comfortably let her.
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amw: I checked out that vest that you mentioned, as I have truncal LE and I'm always looking for a better compression garment to wear. The vest looks like it could work, but I'm wondering, since it is meant for men,, how long is it on you? I'm only 5'3" and wondering if it would come to my knees!!
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glennie19: You might want to check these out, since they are meant for women. As I mentioned at the time I tried the male version: no comfortable fit. Then I got myself two different ones of those tomboy/cosplay/central clasp thingies and I am really pleased:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=breast+binder0 -
glennie19: It's pretty long. It comes down just a couple inches past my hips, but I roll it up over itself (it folds up over itself pretty easily if you've got a bit of chub or curves, as it's meant more for a man's 'straighter' torso) so it's basically sports bra length and fits/looks like a sports bra.
That gives me a little extra compression folded up like that and it still lays flat under my t-shirts. I also don't like the feel of abdominal compression all that much so I didn't ever really intend to wear it unfolded.For their sizing I'm just barely in the 'medium' range so the two rows of hook and eye closures made it easy to kind of customize the fit; I can have it tighter in the actual chest area, then looser a bit lower if I want, but when it's folded over itself that doesn't really matter. If I wear it unfolded and tucked into my pants, I usually have the lower part on the outer hooks and the upper part on the inner hooks.
I can try to snap a pic later today to give you an idea of how it looks folded over itself + folded over and under a t-shirt if you want.
Underworks also does have FtM binders that are designed for less masculine bodies (narrower shoulders, a waist that curves in, hips that curve out, that sort of thing), but none of the ones I saw had front closures and the ones I found on amazon were usually side velcro, which I've tried before hoping it could replace a sports bra, but those require two people to close properly--plus, velcro.
and the one I had previously that I used for cardio and jogging was too hard to get into after surgery as it was a 'step in and wiggle it up past your hips and waist' model.
That one fit really well, just like a tight sports bra on top and a normal tank top on the bottom; I ended up donating the our local LGBTQ group though as I both don't have a need for it anymore and I couldn't use it for medical compression due to the difficulty getting it on.I should point out that I have pretty broad shoulders (I wear a 40 short in mens jackets) so, for tops/vests, mens clothing tends to fit my body better; this one is pretty stretchy all around so I'd imagine it'd work pretty well for a range of shoulder widths.
Aside from my shoulders, I'm 36-35-42 and their size medium fit like a nice, compressing glove.
I also found out, in post-surgery research, that men who have surgery to remove breasts usually get an actual compression vest (with drain pockets/holders!) similar to the Underworks one and I'm over here like, "...and I got a floral velcro tube top. C'mon..."
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https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=breast+binder
I'll check this one out. And yes,, I'd love to see pics if you feel like posting them! Just wondering how bulky it would be to roll up the bottom.
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glennie19 I have a couple pics:
This is what it looks like down (though you can't see just how far as I couldn't selfie that far! My visible hand is at about hip level). Worth noting, I had everything on the inner row of hook and eye closures, which was a bit too tight for me under the arms:
This is how it looks when I fold it in half up over itself. Everything is on the outer row of hook & eye closures on this one, which loosened it up a bit under the arms and made it more comfortable for me. :
With a t-shirt over the folded in half vest:
Edit: It's pretty thin, breathable, stretchy & compressing material to begin with, so folding it over itself didn't make much of a thickness difference. It feels to me to be no thicker than a really sturdily built sports bra.
As a bonus, it also stays folded where I put it and doesn't shift about or 'unroll'; in fact, it WANTS to roll up when I have it down and tucked into my pants. Folded it just kind of sits naturally like a bra would.
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That video highlights the courage this woman has to face head on the lived experience of mastectomies and not just the pretty in pink version. I truly do not think that when one speaks the word mastectomy that people really have an image of what that looks like.
Thanks Paulette Leaphart for spreading, what I think is, a great message about mastectomies as a treatment for breast cancer.
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Thanks for the pics, amw! Really appreciate it!!
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amw, RE: cats.
I had a cat that liked to sleep on my chest before bmx, and my breasts were too sensitive for her kneading, so i got a light pillow to put on top of me and it was purrfect for both of us. That was good after surgery, too, as those scars can be sensitive for a long, long time. Mine still are since 2012. No kidding.
meow.
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OncoWarrior, I'll keep that in mind! She's usually good about not kneading on my chest as she learned that got her moved pretty quickly (and she has all her claws, double ouch).
I suppose it'll depend on how sensitive everything is after it's fully healed; if it's not comfortable for me, she'll just have to learn to sleep somewhere else nearby.
So far things are sensitive, but not painful; more like skin that's very mildly sunburned. You just feel things on it a bit more acutely and it's annoying but not bothersome. Hopefully it either stays like that or goes back to normal after a few months to a year.
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Hi, I don't think I am on the right forum here, but if any of you out there have had a bad experience or you think a wrong decision was made about your care , treatment by doctors or surgery at the Cancer treatment Center , Ellis Fichel teaching hospital, at the University of Columbia Missouri. Please post or send me a private message to Farmlovergrl. Please answer this post or send me a private message, I am about to lose my tissue expander. My doctor took me off Tamoxifen because I cannot tolerate it. I am really scared of more complications, I have already had my share. Thank you and God bless. I guess maybe I do belong here because I am half flat so far.
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When I saw this I thought it was made for us.
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Love it, OncoWarrior!
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Onco, great meme! (Good thing I looked before sending. Autocorrect did weird things with my reply.)
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Melly this is a great article. Such an inspiration.
I am re-posting it here for easier access. You need to hit the "enter" key after the address in order to make the link work.
http://www.fitthrive.com/articles/member-spotlight...
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Thank you Beautiful OncoWarrior.
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Hi ladies, I am half flat. Well, the left is gone and the right is 34AA so maybe I am almost fully flat LOL. I really like this thread, will try to read more.
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Great article, Melly!! Loved it!!
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That was a great article and pictures. Very inspiring.
My surgeon tried to push me towards reconstruction too, but that would have required waiting around longer to meet a plastic surgeon with a tumor sitting in me. And then I heard about chest expanders and that made my decision to skip reconstruction. I hate how bras feel and the prosthetic hurts too so I go out half flat (concave actually) half tiny. I think a lot of people don't notice, at least not without looking closely! I walk around in tank tops at home and my family is just used to it....my three year old will talk about mommy's one booby but he's three booby is a fun word to say LOL.
I wonder if surgeons can fix the concave part without all the expander nonsense, just to be truly flat?
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I have heard of fat grafting to fill in.
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Wren44 thanks for fat grafting idea, I will ask about it. Sounds painful! But i just don't want to be concave that was a shocker.
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I would be up for it if they would take the fat from my Buddha belly.
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LOL Wren44!
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