Twelve days after my final reconstruction surgery I am doing really well. I had a check up with Dr. Willard on Tuesday and my incisions are healing well – no sign of infection. He doesn’t need me to come back to see him for over three months. That’s shocking. In the last 15 months I have rarely spent over three months without seeing any of my doctors.
Dr. Willard also told me to go bra shopping – this time for real bras, not just the sports bras. Becky Ayars, Dr. Willard’s scrub tech who is also a breast cancer survivor and has had breast reconstruction herself, had gently warned me that I wouldn’t be the same as before. And as I told you last week, I’m not the same. In fact, the reconstructed breasts don’t have nearly the volume as real ones.
However, I naively went happily in search of heavily padded bras. Several friends had recommended I go to Soma which specializes in bra fittings for regular women so there I headed. The clerk was really nice but here’s the first word of warning: If you’ve had mastectomies and breast reconstruction, chances are really good that you will not wear a normal bra again.
After 15 minutes in the store, I realized this approach was not going to work. The clerk gave me a package of “enhancers” – chicken-breast-like gel packs that help boost what you’ve got in a regular bra. It was a nice thought but reconstructed breasts don’t have much to “boost.” However, I bought the silicon jiggly things and tried to remain optimistic that someone would know how to help me.
Like it or not, the clouds of doubt had settled in.
I walked through two clothing stores and realized that I didn’t know what to do. The thought of sitting in my car and crying about this fact seemed like a pretty good option. But for reasons I only slightly understand, something told me to think. Other women have been through this so I’m not the first woman with new oddly shaped lumps on my chest. It dawned on me that it might help to talk with the people who operate a shop that sells mastectomy supplies but I couldn’t remember the name of this shop in Greensboro and by then (3 p.m. or so), Tricia’s Pink Bowtique in High Point was closed.
So I walked into Coldwater Creek. A sweet clerk asked me if I needed help and I just decided to unload my troubles on her even though Coldwater Creek didn’t have a thing that I actually needed on Tuesday. The clerk (Lisa) offered to help me search for the mastectomy shop’s name in the phone book. I had a serious block about how to find this place (I’m usually really resourceful but I was once again in a “stun” mode).
Lisa suggested that we look in the yellow pages under “wigs” and there it was. “A Special Place” on State Street. I called but no one answered the phone; they were open but busy. I didn’t want to wait so I plugged the address into the GPS and headed from Friendly to State Street.
Fortunately for me a clerk with special training in fitting bras for women who have had breast surgery (not just mastectomies) was available. Justine spent about 90 minutes with me and was remarkable. I walked into that shop with little hope that I’d find a bra that would fit and walked out with a new shape – a really good shape.
What I needed were partial prosthetics – silicon pads (for lack of a better word) that fill the gap between the reconstructed breasts and the cups of the bra. For a few minutes I sat in the dressing room wondering why I’d just gone through months of reconstruction surgeries to still need prosthetics but now I know.
With the partial prosthetics – and the bras that are made to wear with them – I look good. Now that I have breast implants, I don’t have big caverns where my breasts used to be. In fact, when you pair the new breast implants with the silicon pads (and the right bras), I look really natural, even with a blouse that buttons up the front and a v-neck top. In fact, I actually look like I have a bit of cleavage.
Yes, I know – too much information – but if you are going through breast cancer, mastectomies and reconstruction you need to know.
With the help of my insurance coverage (you need a prescription from your doctor for the prosthetics), I bought one pair of silicon partial breast prosthetics and one pair of a lighter weight foam inserts to wear in hot weather and two bras that fit really great. My chest is actually much larger in diameter than before I had cancer so I had to go up a couple of bra sizes. I opted for a AA cup – the smallest available cup in that size. I bought two bras. Oh yes, bras specially made for women who’ve had breast surgery have deeper side panels and those are essential to holding in the tissue that loses its tone after mastectomies.
My insurance will cover a good portion of all of these things and will even cover two camisoles a year. I want to buy those but was pretty exhausted emotionally after this experience so I’ll go back later and get those. (They are great – they have built in pockets for the prosthetics so they’ll be great for summer wear). “A Special Place” even has lingerie that will hold the prosthetics. Although the one topic I don’t plan to cover in this blog is intimacy, I am very relieved to know that I can find something pretty and feminine to wear for that part of my life too.
Justine also told me that I can get prosthetics that hold up well for swimming and I’d eventually like to buy those as well.
So 12 days after my final reconstruction surgery I have a pretty decent set of “curves.” Yes, I had hoped that I wouldn’t need any enhancement but more than that I wanted to return to wearing normal clothes and looking feminine. And now I can.
Yesterday I went back to Dr. Willard’s office to show them my new treasures. What a sweet group of women (Dr. Willard’s sweet too, but the women were the ones who were really interested in my shopping spree). Becky and the others there came into the exam room so I could show them the results of my bra shopping trip. They have seen me through every ugly stage of reconstruction – no secrets here. And they were delighted at the way Justine helped finish the job they so aptly had started – reconstructing my chest.
Yes, my new shape is largely “smoke and mirrors.” But I’m happy. I want women to know that breast implants for reconstructed women look one way outside of the chest (sitting on a table) and very different once they are put in your chest. You’d be amazed at how much of the implant fills the cavity in your chest before they overflow into what we think of as breast-like mounds on your chest.
Dr. Willard said the plastic surgery industry continues to try different methods of giving breasts back to women who have lost them but the fact is very few women will have a natural looking shape. I sort of have a plateau – a mound that flattens out in the space where the mastectomy incisions cross my chest. But that’s before these “miracle” prosthetics and bras work their magic.
I will continue to work on losing weight. As the rest of my body slims, the breasts will be even better by comparison (plus the new “girls” won’t ever sag or shrink). I will shortly begin exercising and toning. And the post-surgical puffiness will continue to dissipate.
And in the meantime, I can’t wait to try my old clothes on the new me.
What could have been a very frustrating and disappointing day turned into a new beginning for me. Thank you to Lisa at Coldwater Creek for taking the time to help me find the name of “A Special Place” and for Justine at “A Special Place” for giving me renewed hope. And thanks to my friend Susan Weaver who kept calling me (and missing me) all day to tell me that she felt called to pray for me all day.
Epilogue: I returned that set of “jiggly” things to Soma and told the clerk there about “A Special Place.” She’s happy to know where to send other women like me. Then I went back to Coldwater Creek and showed sweet Lisa what a good job she had done. She cried when she hugged me. Susan Weaver and I finally stopped playing phone tag and I got to tell her that her prayer radar had, indeed, picked up on a need that I didn’t even know I had. And yes, her prayers (and mine) had been answered.
Angels are indeed everywhere.
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Cathy Weaver
