Fill 3

These fills are ridiculous. Third one. I’ve talked to my reconstructive surgeon and we’ll do perhaps one more. Maybe. And that’s it. Before the bilateral mastectomy, I was a DD bra size, so I originally thought I would settle for a C cup. Smaller yet curvy. Jason is a tit man, after all.

But the fills suck. Plain and simple. And it’s absolutely disgusting to think that my chest muscles are being warped. I’ve heard that sleeping positions can be affected by the larger the silicone implants, too. These are 100% fake, no mammary glands for padding. They move differently than normal breast tissue. I don’t need to wear a bra anymore (bonus!), in fact, bras don’t fit the phony tits. And since silicone tends runs colder, I don’t want big cold boobs. I’m always cold as it is.

So after the first fill, I revised my C cup size to a B cup. But in freaky cancerland, bra sizes don’t matter anymore. It’s all about the amount of saline cc’s injected into me. This is confusing. Everyone keeps telling me to gauge my size by how far my boobs stick out from my chest. But when one expander is growing up high near my shoulder and the other one is growing downward by my ribs, it becomes complicated. I’m told not to worry about it, this happens. Believe me, I’m not worried. I just want it done.

My plastic surgeon installed expanders that hold up to 450 cc’s of saline. That would require six fills. Hahahaha. NO. WAY. I’m currently at 300 cc’s (apparently I was filled with 150 cc’s during surgery, not 100; this was a surprise to me). So I might be settling for an A cup size. I don’t know. Nobody knows—including bras.

What I do know is that my breast surgeon removed over one and a half pounds of boobs. And I didn’t expect the sensation I felt when I first sat up after surgery. The weightlessness! I stood arrow-like, too. One and a half pounds doesn’t seem like much unless you hold a 28oz can of tomatoes and place it right in front of your chest. I wonder if my back and neck will release much of their chronic tension in the ensuing years. Suddenly, I’m a huge advocate for breast reduction. I absolutely love these little boobs! 

Fill 2

A few hours after the first fill, I thought it would be easy. Although my chest felt stretched, I didn’t feel any pain—that is, until I woke up at 3am and hobbled to the bathroom to grab some Advil. For this second fill, I was prepared. I took a valium after I returned home. It didn’t help with the pain, which was more acute than the first time, but it helped relax my muscles. And no middle of the night wake-up. 

The second fill made the expanders less pinchy as they rounded out a bit more. Not only did I feel stretched, I felt like I desperately needed to nurse which is ridiculous because I don’t have any mammary glands and the expanders are behind my chest muscle. Nonetheless, I felt like I needed a baby sucking on these phony tits of mine.

I also got a lesson on what it means to be curious when I asked the nurse if I could see an expander.

It looks so innocent and marshmallowy soft in the nurse’s hands, but it’s quite menacing. My tits are rock hard and uncomfortable. The center alien eye is where I’m stabbed deep through my muscle. Interestingly, the only metal in the expander is the magnet circling that orifice. I could have sworn there was metal touching my ribs. Also, it had been difficult to sleep because I was confined to my back. A week ago I carefully rolled onto my side for the first time since the surgery, hugging a large pillow to my chest with two little pillows shoved under each armpit and a lower one in-between my legs. The amount of pillows I’ve accumulated in the middle of our bed has made a wall. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Jason asked. 

The nurse is entirely fascinated by the reconstruction process and her words come out in chirps. 

When she flipped over the expander to show me the other side, she casually mentioned that the three tabs are stitched onto my ribcage to hold it in place.

“My ribcage???!!”

“Well, the facia of your ribcage.”

“Disgusting!”

“The stitches haven’t dissolved yet, so you probably feel them pull.”

“Gross! But my left arm is still tight.”

“That’s from the lymph node removal. And to make sure they removed all the mammary glands, they also scraped your skin.”

“Oh my god.”

And, yes, I do feel a dull inner tug deep within my ribcage whenever I reach high or move my torso. And now I know why.