Looks like retrograde is coming early for me.
Once upon a time, after my sexual liberation from my mediocre relationship after my failed sexless marriage I talked about my vagina at work a lot.
To the point where one of the girls at work made a snide comment, verbatim, “here comes Sarah to talk about her vagina again.”
Hush sis, just because yours is lonely, don’t be getting mad at mine.
I have also spent a lot of time explaining and exploring Poland’s Syndrome.
I have that.
I talk about my boobs a lot too.
In the immortal words of the Teletubbies, “again, again.”
Cliff’s notes, I was born without my pectoral muscles on my right side and since fat will not grow on bone, I never grew a tit where a tit oughta be.
Earned me the nickname jellyboob in high school and is probably predominantly responsible for my rock bottom self esteem and crushing body dysmorphia. I had to wear a chicken cutlet prosthesis until I could go for surgery, so like 2 years.
And yet, I strip. I date. I do things.
That’s kinda my existence in a nutshell. Missing something really normal and important, do things anyways.
I am the girl who worked at the strip club right after physio so I could rent an apartment and get out of my marriage even though I was in insane amounts of pain and could barely walk right. If it needs doing, I do it.
I have had implants since I was 16. Several over the years, the last ones being 2011.
The last few years I have been feeling not so great.
I was in a car wreck in 2009, my knees hurt all the time, my neck too, I function at a 3 or 4 on the pain scale every day and it spikes bad a few times a month.
I figured this was just life now.
But lately it has been so much worse. And I can’t begin to tell you when it started.
I did notice this last trip to Newfoundland that drinking a drink or 3 knocked my pain down to a very manageable 1 or 2, then I would get drunk and then hungover and regret it. Drinking truly is borrowing tomorrow’s happiness.
I had previously chalked my health problems up to the amount of drinking I did for the 2+ years I lived there. I was technically chronically hungover. But I stopped last November, I should feel kinda better by now. I also quit smoking a year ago in June.
I now have this sneaking suspicion that a fairly large part of my drinking problem was pain management.
I cannot enumerate the amount of times I have woken up over the last year with horrible pain in my hips and lower back. But it must be the car wreck right? I damaged my pelvis, I am getting older.
Driving 3 days made me feel like my shoulders were dislocated and somehow on fire. My knees swelled up to half cantaloupes. It wasn’t like this the times before.
Then I started thinking about all the times I swam at the quarry and how bad ticks were those years. Do I have Lyme’s disease? I looked up the symptoms and a few are on point. Headaches, vertigo, dizziness, joint pain. But there’s more, that don’t need to be discussed here, belly tings. Yucky hurty belly tings.
About a month ago I was watching Botched with my Lexi girl in the kitchen. The girl who ‘won’ Flava of Love was on asking to get her implants removed. I say won, because did anyone really win anything there?
Anyways, she described the symptoms of breast implant illness.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. But in the last 24 hours I have done a little research and it has become a very real possibility.
I think what hit me the hardest was ‘misdiagnosed Lyme’s disease’. And I have 8 out of the top 10.
My tits are not currently great. They never were. I had a baby goat get rejected by her mama about 3 nights after I had surgery. She ended up in my coat and kicked my compression bandages off on the way to the house, by the time I got her fed and settled I was too tired to look after myself and as a result my left tit sits lower than my right, noticeably so.
Add to that the fact that my last set of implants were a result of my doctor bribing me out of my eating disorder. If I could gain and maintain weight, she would give me a referral and 50% of the cost would be covered. Gotta love Canadian healthcare.
But it worked, I have since gained more weight and since fat loves to grow on muscle, I am a full cup size heavier on the left as well.
I have been back and forth about getting them fixed, even going so far as to have a consultation with an incredible surgeon, but …
There is always a but…
Do I go through this, the recovery and risk a lot of scarring to still be imperfect?
Can’t I just love myself as is?
I can, mostly. I try to anyways.
I think perfection is not in the cards for me as far as tits go.
But what if these things are making me sick?
I should be excited by the idea of being a normal, pain free human being again. And if this is it, then yes please.
By most accounts once they are out life gets immediately and noticeably better.
But can I live without tits? Do I risk getting a new set and going through this again?
What if that isn’t an option?
2 jellyboobs instead of one?
I want to go back to school in January, is this going to fuck with that? why is that every time I make a life decision and start working towards it something gets incredibly fucky?
I am so close to having a breakdown and a tantrum at the same time.
I haven’t written much lately. I think the big delete I did kinda knocked the wind out of me. Plus BLM and all the injustices and crazy circus shit going on south of the border made me feel inconsequential and like I wanted to be quiet.
But I forgot. I do this for me. And I am scared right now. This is me sorting through my thoughts and fears.
I have already messaged my plastic surgeon, done as much research I can on the brand and serial number of my implants, they have been recalled and they are Allergan. Not the Biocell textured ones that cause cancer, but still same manufacturer and still recalled.
I have a requisition for bloodwork to see if its something else.
But I won’t have any answers today, and today I am afraid.
