I look for other flat chested women. A rant.
Comments
-
MT1 and Cooka, very interesting links. Edited to add - thanks.
0 -
Carla - great article and thank you for sharing.
My rant for the day. I was doing a search thru a grant database for the orginization I work for. General grants that apply to varied organizations. And what do I come across but 2 grants to promote the option of reconstruction, and what foundation is providing the grant - The Plastic Surgery Foundation! Under what the monies can be used for - it is only outreach/public relations to promote reconstruction. It clearly states the the cost of reconstruction and the fees to a surgeon are not covered.
Really, but really!!! link www.thepsf.org
Can we deluge them with emails suggesting they support all options in their PR awards.
As beautiful as it is today here in Massachusetts, I was already cranky - the men in my life are just so annoying!! My teen son and soon to be EX. Going to breathe and try to chill for the remainder of the day
Be well
Nel
0 -
I am now in Florida. I am amazed that there are more choices in bras and camis with pockets here in Florida than in Montreal. I bought 3 camis, one from Lululemon in Montreal before I left, and two on my arrival in Florida.
I played golf the day after my arrival so I was 4 weeks post BMX. I wore a cami to try it for comfort. Boy way too hot and humid for camis in Florida. Better for cooler weather I would say. My husband said why bother wearing a cami, just go “a la natural”. But I expected to run into someone on the golf course. And sure enough, one of our friends just returning from a tournament ran up to me to give me a bear hug. Glad I had my cami !!!
So off shopping again to check out more bras since the cami idea is no good in hot weather. To my amazement, I found a junior bra at Macy’s with a pocket, and with the silicone foob my daughter had found for me at Walmart, of all places, these darling little cheapie bras fit very comfortably and are perfect for golf. They don’t ride up when I play golf. I am very pleased with this find. Must get a dozen next time I go shopping, just in case they disappear in the near future. (the silicone foob was $16).
Some of you are very happy going “a la natural” which I do at home all the time, but outside, I don’t like to do so, mainly because I don’t like my ribs showing under my clothing, especially golf shirts which are so thin.
0 -
On the plane coming down here I had the pleasure/annoyance of sitting next to a gal with implants. Her boobs were oozing out of her tank top. I felt like saying to her that we were poles apart as far as boobs were concerned....her with her popping out boobs and me with nothing but my ribs showing. We got talking during the flight. She owns a bar so I get the message that the boobs are part of her stock-in-trade for the business. Oh well, ce que vous excite, je suppose! whatever turns you on
0 -
So glad to find this thread. I am quite comfortable with being flat chested now. Though for a period of 6 months, I was one breasted, yet now, completely breastless, I feel so much better about myself, so free. So far, I am 95% sure I am opting for no use of prosthetics, tried one during my single boob time, hated it, and am now looking for clothing options on return to work this summer. I do work with many clients and need to dress professionally for work, so a wee challenge in finding what will work as clothing goes, at home, I am comfortable in a tshirt or not and a pair of jeans. I am thankful to have my hair back, though very curly now, I actually thought being bald was far easier to manage, yet clothing, yikes!! Another story.
0 -
I have chosen not to wear fake boobs, and though new to being completely breastless, 8 months without my left breast, 6 weeks now without my right breast, I really feel ok with it, Only concern, return to work. I truly admire women who go through reconstruction, for me, reconstruction involves so much more surgery, etc, my breast removal is the first surgery I have ever had in my life! I truly admire women who shop for a replacement of their breast/breasts. My own opinion is I prefer to shop for a great pair of shoes. So, I plan to follow my gut and continue to go without any fake boobs, as I find them uncomfortable,annoying, bras are horrbile for me now(wearing a fake boob to "balance" before my other was removed). Perhaps I am missing something, yet I am more than my breasts, and frankly, if anyone has a problem with it, that is theirs, not mine! Yay!
0 -
Sophie, that was my biggest concern too, although now I really don't worry about it (my surgery was almost 3 years ago). For the most part people don't notice, and if they do I don't care, but I don't want my chest to be a distraction at work.
While I'll wear tight solid color shirts anywhere else, I don't wear them to work anymore and generally try to wear either something with a collar and buttons or a print. I don't stick to that 100%, but it's my usual. I don't use scarves - am not one for accessories in general. If you have the time, scroll through this thread. A lot of women have posted pictures of outfits over time.
0 -
I am forced to be lop sided and hate it, they wont do prophylatic.....
0 -
Oh Lily, I am so sorry! Why?
0 -
They just say no to prophylatic and no to reconstruction.....its almost a year since operation anniversary and I am feeling m i s e r a b l e
0 -
On swim suits - I am pondering a bold and crazy move - just wearing trunks or the bottom part of a two piece. After all, I have less than a man. I don't even have nipples. Why should I have to wear something on top? Also, great way to publicize going flat.
I'll probably chicken out, but if any of my flat sisters want to go topless at a beach with me to make a statement ... I'll screw my courage to the sticking point.
0 -
Alexandria, just don't try it at a pool. There was a huge brouhaha last year when a women had problems with bathing suits or any bathing top touching her. She did ask permission prior. The pool finally relinquished their ban and allowed her to go topless but it took awhile.
0 -
Alexandria, this is a link to the Huffington Post story about Jody Jaecks who won the right to swim topless at her pool.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/jodi-jaecks-cancer-survivor-swimming-topless_n_1615701.html
I don't know how to make the link light up - sometimes it seems to do it when I put one in, sometimes it doesn't - but you can copy/paste it into your browser. I think she's got a lot of courage.
0 -
Changing the subject a bit, when I had my breasts removed, I had a friend in the same place, but she got reconstruction and has been strutting her "girls" in tight tank tops ever since. Naturally my mind traveled to feeling poorly about myself...even though I could not have skin sparing surgery, I liked her fun "girls" and the daring way she wore them.
Well, I ran into her today and it was hard for me to keep my eyes off them, they were all rippled, like waves going across. We talked about health, she is doing good, but they have to save up money for her co-pay (20%) before she can attempt to have the waves corrected.
I am sorry to see her struggle, no one wants to see such a thing happen after only 2 years, but it made me more confident in my own mind for feeling better about my own choice. I didn't realize reconstruction could go so badly after 2 years.
0 -
Crystal, I have heard so many stories like your friend's. I am sure lots of women have uneventful and successful recon surgeries, but there sure are many complications and failures as well.
0 -
MT and Cooka, thanks for posting the links. Took me a while to get through the - had to pull out the hated reading glasses.
I think I've been obviously out since I've mentioned my partner a few times on these boards, but because usually it has seemed like I'm the only one, I've tried not to stress it. I don't want to be the token voice of any people. What I took away from what MT posted is what we all keep saying - everyone makes their own decision and for different reasons. Yes, there is pressure from the "industry," but the reasons most women choose things are very personal. The quotes were so much more informative than aggregate categories. I can imagine being afraid I couldn't find a job if I were visibly wounded by my illness, I can imagine many of the things mentioned, even if they weren't my reasons for choices.
My personal snapshot of experience is that I actually find at least as much commonality of experience when I talk to women who have had cancer while their kids were young or to women who chose non-reconstruction, as when I talk to lesbians who have had BC. Although I know people who have transitioned female to male, I don't have any desire to seek any of them out because that's definitely not my experience. Maybe it's made me less shocked by my own appearance, but I don't think it's been a big factor in my processing of the loss of my breasts.
I'm glad that little study was put out, but I'd like to see something larger, and globally inclusive, really examining why women are making choices and what's important to them. Then I'd like to see the recognition that there are a lot of reasons - that women are all different even though there may be commonalities - become the basis of how women are presented with options after mastectomy. It shouldn't be a discussion opened with a list of reconstruction options, it should be opened with "What's important to you in your recovery?" Then everyone can be validated.
0 -
Outfield, although I did not read the articles posted (I have a slight aversion to social science jargon), I think I follow what you are getting at anyway, and I also think your point may be somewhat related to my aversion to the jargon. In the end we are people. We think and act and relate as people. We all have multiple aspects to our beings. I have straight friends and gay friends, mom friends and childless friends, friends with boobs and friends without
, friends from many cultures, language groups and ethnicities. We all have so many different points where we can meet others and so many different reasons for choosing as we do.0 -
Real choice and real empowerment is waht matters, sadly I am too much of a wimp to have the courage to insit on total flatness even though I am fine with it for otheres, somehow the expectation is that we are all made "good as new" and now I find that is never true, even for those with recons, I do think the word is re-con as in another con...........as its not a breast, just a shape, and largely sensation less......so hargely a reconstructed breast is it, but still I long to know I could have the choice to do it
0 -
Lily55 where do you live that your insurance doesn't cover? I was told that it might be hard to get the prophylactic, but that if I used symmetry, not good candidate for reconstruction, pain, and LE issues, I could get it for those reasons. Or is it the doctors saying no?
0 -
Hi Lily, I think you've just hit the nail on the head.
It really is the "option" that matters, isn't it?
I knew from the get go that I didn't want recon, and that I wanted to keep my healthy breast. My choice, my decision.
My surgeon was happy with my decision, but he also told me that the door isn't closed. If I decided, later, that I wanted recon, it could be done. I was very pleased to hear that, even though I don't want it, I don't want to be told I can't have it! My surgeon also said that if I did decide I wanted to reconstruct, that I needed to be aware that I woud get a mound, not a breast. I was very grateful for his no nonsense approach.
I have not waivered about my decision. I don't feel disfigured, in fact I have a strange affinity with my scar, I actually find it powerful, don't ask me why!
But , this is all very well, and good. My point to you Lily, is, I got my own way with everything to do with this, my journey, with the exception of having to get the bloody Dx in the first place.
For you, as I understand it, had your power usurped by a system in another country. I am not sure if you're from Spain, but the point is that, had you had the same level of control as I, and many others did, would you be happier with the outcome? Just a thought, Lily.
I really feel for you, Lily, for the way you feel, and your perception of the way you look.
You've made me wonder if my experience would have been a negative one, had I not felt I had control of my destiny.
Take care, have you had any luck with your sleeping? I do hope so.
0 -
Outfield,
Your comments about commonality are really interesting. I am a straight woman who chose not to have reconstruction, while a lesbian friend of mine never considered NOT reconstructing--she had a bilateral mastectomy and tissue expanders to implants. Even though she had problems with the implants and had to have additional surgery, she still doesn't regret her decision. In fact, before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had considered getting implants just to augment her existing breasts. Talking with her reminded me that, as you say, the reasons most women choose things are very personal. We certainly shouldn't make assumptions about attitudes toward reconstruction based on a woman's sexual preferences.
0 -
Outfield,
I agree with you. And I am glad to have found some articles that begin to open the discussion up.
I have been thinking on breast cancers' history, when just 50 years ago women did not discuss diagnosis, treatment or, at that period, the disfigurement of the surgery options available. And now, we have a thoroughly different culture where some women are choosing not to wear breast forms at all and are showing their scars purposefully. Societally speaking I think women having scars is 'unacceptable, freghtening, shocking' and at the very least 'discomforting'. We have kept quiet for a long time.
I think change in our society often comes about from the participation or observation of maginalized subcultures.
Anyway, I think it would be great to have a broader discussion, where those of us who are just 'too sensible' to want reconstruction are heard and understood by the greater majority, by nurses, doctors, insurance companies, family and friends. And to discuss that many of us are just fine, mentally and physically, with being a woman without breasts in the face of this awful disease.
I was invited to a luncheon called Spirit of Life that is run by City of Hope, who does cancer research. This is being sponsored by a foundation called the Seak Foundation whose mission is to encourage women to love the skin they are in through fitness and events like The Sports Bra Challenge. I have invited Alexandria56, from this board to go with me. I am hoping to network and connect with a group or organization who might help spread the word that opting out of reconstruction is viable, beautiful, normal and 'just one more option among many'.
0 -
Mel, for some reason your post jolted my memory. When I was in college (in NY), one of the people who used to hang with us was a woman in her 30s who had lost one breast to cancer. Her remaining breast was fairly large, but she did nothing to disguise the missing one. She also wore fabulous dresses that gave people an eyefull of scar. She looked great. Oddly enough I never thought of her, consciously anyway, during my treatment, but I think her great example back then must have been hovering in the back of my mind.
0 -
Momine, good to hear of that lady you knew in college. That is what I want for myself and am currently doing. I've started wearing my normal clothes. I HAVE lost a breast, and I feel averse to strapping a fake one on. No disrespect to anyone who feels nicer wearing a prosthetic, good on you for whatever choice makes sense for you. Plastic surgery and accessories are normally areas of choice. In choosing p/s or accessiories, or neither, or an occasional bit of accessorising you would expect plenty of options to suit different women at different life stages and with different lifestyles. Anything else I can think of to do with our appearance - (clothes, hair, shoes, make-up, regular accessories) are matters of personal consideration, It wouldn't suggest to anyone that you were less of a woman if you wore your hair up or down, flats or heels, trousers or skirts or even changed among these options day to day.
0 -
Feline, thinking back on her, I really think that as with all things having to do with looks/appearance, attitude is 9/10ths of the game. When we feel good, secure and confident, we look good, end of story. So the key is to get our heads in the right place, whatever that means for each individual.
0 -
So true. Great point.
0 -
Feline - well said.
I used to always wear my prosthesis because I'm very lopsided (well not at home, but when out and about, except for swimming). I had decided to have a prophylactic MX to take care of the lopsided issue, no reconstruction. But while prepping to talk to the BS about the MX I've been going lopsided. It's crazy, no one seems to notice, I'm more comfortable than with prosth, so much that I'm considering just staying 1/2 flat. And now when I wear my prosthesis as an accessory (that's how I feel about it now), I end up so uncomfortable, painful after I take it off.
Momine - I love the story about the woman you knew in college, very encouraging and inspiring.
0 -
I have been flat now for 18 months, and although I miss my breasts, I have grown fond of my scars. We are going to Hawaii in July, and I have been looking for non-gaping tops. However, after reading above comments I am wondering why I need to be so concerned that others may glimpse my scars? If I were a man with a scarred chest, who would care? I feel very comfortable in myself, so may continue to wear sundresses and looser tops and not worry that I may "offend" anyone. I still feel attractive and confident, so don't think I am going to go out of my way to cover-up my battle scars.
0 -
Halaluah Rowan! I think my scars are my breasts and I would have shown cleavage before, why not now??
0 -
Haha, indeed, MT1. Maybe I'll even go topless on Waikiki!!
0
