Brockville, ON - Summer 2013
Once things were healed I knew that it was all worth it. I would do the surgery again in a second even though the pain afterwards was so excruciating. It was a 6.5 hour surgery. That is a long time. Now that I had these new breasts that were definitely different than what I originally had, it was going to take some getting used to. And some adjustments! I know this is kind of bizarre but picture two new breasts just built. Kind of like a sundae without the cherry on top if you know what I mean. So I made arrangements with Dr. Surgeon to have the finishing touches done.This next part is the most bizarre and awkward experience ever! It is actually kind of unnerving to be writing this and know that people will be reading it. It makes me feel somewhat awkward but at the same time it is not an everyday subject and something that others can learn from. Women and men. So here goes….
Let’s
start with the plain old sundae which is basically the two new breasts. Now you can choose to just leave things as is
or you can choose to add some toppings.
After living with them for a while I decided to add the toppings. The areola area was the first thing to
add. How do they do it? Tattoos.
Yep Tattoos. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. Let me tell you that it was the most bizarre
experience of this entire journey I think.
There is a tattoo artist that goes to my surgeon’s office at the hospital
on a regular basis to do the areola tattoo procedure for his patients. Mike came with me for the procedure and when
we saw the tattoo artist he looked just like any of the guys working in the
tattoo shops downtown. Except this was
the hospital and it just seemed so out of place. He was a super nice guy and we were made to
feel very comfortable.
The
first thing we had to do was choose a size.
By that I mean the size of the circle.
Was it the size of a quarter or a small plate? He had templates with various circle sizes
that he held up to my plain vanilla sundaes so that we could get a better idea. Eventually my husband helped me choose one
that was close to the size we both thought I was before. The entire time I was trying not to break
into fits of laughter. I mean really can
you imagine doing this? Then the next
thing was to pick the color. Was it
more pink or more brown? That took some
time to determine as well. Worse than
picking out tile color for your floor or which shade of white to put on your
walls. Finally when we had made all of
our picks, the work began.
Mike & I - Paris, France - Summer 2012
As I was lying flat on my back on the examination table in the room, looking up at my husband and the tattoo guy chit-chatting about gas prices over me while he was freezing my skin and getting the color prepped, I could not believe how bizarre this was. I could never have imagined anything like this ever happening to me in my life! So strange! Although I did not really have much feeling in my new breasts, they froze me anyway just to be sure. After the outline of the areola was done, the tattoo pigment was applied and before I knew it I was done and ready to head home. It was quite extraordinary to have had this experience that was both incredibly weird and fascinating all at the same time. Another artist had made his mark on my body in the process of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.
A few weeks later I had one more trip back to have the nipple reconstruction done. Dr. Surgeon just froze me again and used a needle and thread basically to pull some skin together to make a “nipple”. Again, weird but now I was done. The cherry was on top of the sundae.
How Bizarre - Otara Millionaires Club (OMC)
