1. CC VS. CUP SIZE!!
Let me explain. If you watched my
episode of Botched on E!, then it will make a little more sense to you. No, I
am not bratty and ungrateful. There is a reason behind the SIZE obsession….
Here
it goes. So before breastfeeding my son, I was a NATURAL DD. After I was done,
one ended up being about a B cup, and the other ended up being a D cup! It was
CRAZY! I guess I would have chose to LIVE with it, had they at least been close
to the same to each other. But they weren’t. And it was a daily struggle for me
to even keep a BRA on. When I went to my
1st surgeon, the one who BOTCHED me, he NEVER explained to me how
many cc’s I would need to be a particular cup size. Being that I never had
plastic surgery, I could only explain to him that I wanted them A- to MATCH
each other, and B-to be lifted and filled up.
I chose 500 cc’s, still not
knowing what size that would make me, but was assured that would fill the skin
I had, even after a lollipop lift. I was good with that. Long story short, I
ended up with 660 cc implants, being about a DDD/F. WAY BIGGER than I wanted to
be.
So back to Botched, you see me
repeatedly asking Dr. Dubrow about implants & size. NOT because I wanted
them BIGGER. Because I had ALREADY had a Dr. give me a size that I did NOT
want. I was NOT going to go through THAT again! In my mind, I thought, He wants
me to get a 300 cc implant, but I just had 600 cc’s. So that would be half the
size?? Then I would be SMALLER than what I had BEFORE my 1st
surgery? This was why I kept asking him. When Dr. Dubrow explained to me, here
is the implant on the table. By itself, it’s a D cup, ON YOU with your EXISTING
breast tissue, it will be a DD cup; IT ALL MADE MORE SENSE! I now have 350
& 400 cc implants, and actually am still wearing my DDD bras. He gave me
the end result of what I wanted to begin with.
But as a regular person, with NO surgical background, I wouldn’t have
known all of that!
2. ASK AROUND!!!
Ok. So before I chose this
particular doctor, I googled him. There were a few bad reviews on Yelp. But
those aren’t always true. And some people CAN have unrealistic expectations. Being
a business owner myself, I understand that. I looked on every website I could
think of, to search for information on him. And came up with NOTHING. I
thought, “ok, he must be as good as he says he is”. I was WRONG.
For WHATEVER
reason, I decided to keep my surgery completely private. I guess I didn’t want anyone’s opinions on
how I didn’t need surgery, or how I was fine the way I was. I felt the way I
felt, my husband supported me, and that was all the opinions I needed. HOWEVER, once my surgery was done, and the
results were immediately BAD, and I started telling people about it; it turns
out EVERYONE KNEW about him. Everyone knew someone who had a HORRIBLE
experience, but me! Had I just asked around BEFORE I went to him, it would have
saved me all the grief I had gone through!
So, the lesson here would be this.
Go to a surgeon with a CLEAR record with the medical board, but ALSO go to
someone who you know several people had gone to and LOVED their results. Go from personal experiences with the doctor.
And consult with several of them. If they don’t take the time to give you ALL
the information you need, and answer all your questions, then find someone
else.
3.COMPRESSION GARMENTS
This is another thing I had NO idea
about. And if I could have gone back to do it again, I would have asked about
it before my surgery. First of all, you
need to know that the point of a compression bra is NOT to cover them up so you
look like a granny, ok? They really do serve a purpose! And as you might have seen in another episode
of Botched, if you take them off too soon, your implants can move. You could
end up with one under your chin, and one over your belly, and you do NOT want
that!
For me, I went home from surgery bandaged up. And being that I had a
“double bubble”, they had me wear a compression band to force one of the
implants down, never making mention of a compression bra. 2 weeks later, my
implants had bottomed out, and I had full on synmastia where my implants were
now touching each other over my sternum.
At that 2 week appointment, my doctor
told me to get online and ORDER a compression bra IMMEDIATELY. Now, some doctors provide this. Who knows,
maybe all of the legit doctors do! Dr. Dubrow certainly sent me home in one!
But that sent me into a panic! I went straight home, got online and ordered a
compression bra from the website he recommended, and it took days to arrive.
But I was terrified they would have moved in the meantime! Or I could have paid
an additional $40 to ship it overnight? After spending almost $9k on implants,
ummm, we were tapped out! So, had I known before hand that this WASN’T provided,
I would have ordered it BEFORE surgery, and it would have been there when it
was time for me to wear it.
4.THERE WILL BE PAIN!
Yep! No matter who you are, or how
high your tolerance for pain is, it’s gonna hurt! And for that, you are
prescribed pain pills for your recovery. They can be amazing in chipping off
the pain at times. Definitely not 100%, and not 100% of the time either. You will be uncomfortable. But they
definitely help when you keep them in your system for the first few days….Or
you could be stubborn like me, and refuse to take them around the clock. I just
can’t stand feeling out of it, or maybe I am just a control freak. I don’t like feeling that way.
However, they
can also affect MANY other things. Like, well, your ability to go to the bathroom!
Whenever I think of this, I hear Janice Dickinson from her episode of Botched
say “I don’t want to feel this bad. It hurts to blow my nose, it hurts to take
a s*it!”…..yep. It’s true. Those amazing little pain pills will stop everything
in your belly from moving freely! Make sure you have SOME sort of laxatives on
hand BEFORE your surgery! You will be SO happy you did.
5. DRAINS
I had no idea I would need drains,
going into my 1st reconstructive surgery. Not that it would have prevented me from going
through with surgery. But I didn’t know about it going in. Yuck. They were
painful, disgusting and EXTREMELY uncomfortable. There are things that make
having drains a little more comfortable, and I found those out after I had them
a day or two. Surgical tape kept them
from moving, or hanging freely. And soft gauze kept them from catching on my
clothes. Things I had to send my husband out to pick up. But they sure did make my life a little
easier!
So! I think the core of this is to
ASK QUESTIONS! Do your research! And educate yourself as much as you can on the
procedure, recovery, and what has been helpful for others undergoing the same
procedure. You really DO have to be your
own advocate! The more you know ahead of time, the better you will be afterwards. Surgery is surgery, and you should know all
the complications going into it. It’s your body. And YOU have to live with it!