About two months ago I had a breast reduction and lift. I have decided to document it all here for other people who want to have it done and want to hear how things went for someone else! People tend to not want to talk about plastic surgery and "what they've had done" but I am happy and proud of my decision and in my old age I don't care what people think!!
I've always been on the larger side in the boob department. I'm a small person, only 5 ft and small framed so that made them look even bigger. I've had pain in my shoulders, neck and back for as long as I can remember. Not to mention it was SO HARD to find swimsuits that fit and even clothes. I've planned on eventually having a reduction for a long time but I wanted to wait until I was finished having babies and breastfeeding before making the decision. Soon after Brooks was finished breastfeeding we started talking about adoption and so I put the reduction thoughts in the back of my mind. Once our adoption was complete and I felt settled enough I started thinking about it again. I started researching and made a consultation appointment with Dr. Gunn at Hedden Plastic Surgery in Birmingham.
My consultation was at the end of May.(Hubby went with me) At this point I wasn't for sure settled on having it done right now. I just wanted to talk about it with the doctor and learn everything I needed to know. Dr. Gunn was awesome at explaining everything. Our insurance policy will sometimes cover this surgery but only if the amount they want taken off is done, which in this case was 500 cc's per breast. Dr. Gunn pulled some implants that were close to that amount and if we removed that much I wouldn't have had much left. I wanted them smaller but I didn't want to be left with nothing. Dr. Gunn said he would do what I wanted but he would rather not take that much...he didn't want me back in 10 years asking for implants and I SURE didn't want that to happen. We paid for the surgery out of pocket.
My next question and concern was "How long am I going to be down?" We have 5 kids and I'm not one to just sit around and be lazy. I get bored fast. Dr. Gunn looked at me and said, "two weeks." I basically said, "How about one?"
He told me he thought that would be ok as long as I only went to the office and worked a little and didn't pick any of the kids up...or anything over ten pounds.The doctor spent a lot of time with us. He explained all about how the surgery would go, exactly what he would do and how I would recover. It was an outpatient procedure but I would have to come into the office the next morning to be checked. Since we live an hour away I quickly responded that we would just stay in a hotel and he agreed that would be best. He was very thorough and took time with us. They have surgical suites in their office so the surgery would be performed there.
After we left the appointment I pretty much already knew I was going to do it. I just needed to work out when. I called a few days later and scheduled it for July 16th. I wanted to wait until after the 4th of July because I knew we would be at the beach. I had my preop appointment on July 3rd and we left for the beach right after. The preop appointment was just a nurse appointment, she got a ton of information and did blood work.
The Friday before my surgery I found out I would need to be there at 6:15 the morning of surgery. We decided to go ahead and stay the night before surgery in Birmingham as well. This would allow us to go ahead and be settled in our room before the surgery so that was a plus. AND allowed us to have a date the night before surgery!
I didn't sleep much the night before surgery. I rolled out of bed at 5 am so that I could take one last long shower and dry my hair. I wasn't sure if I would be able to wash my hair or dry it after surgery for a while. We left the hotel about 6am. When we arrived we got checked in. I was soon called back by a nurse who had me change into a robe and she took pictures. Next the anesthesiologist came in and talked with me...I explained that any time I have surgery I always wake up vomiting. He promised to give me all the things to help with that. Then, he started my IV. After that Dr. Gunn came in and we talked again about how much to take off. I told him I wanted to be a small "C". I also told him if he got in there and was in doubt to take more off. I told him he could leave too much but he couldn't take too much! haha! He then drew ALL over me with a sharpie. The anesthesiologist came back in, shot something in my IV and told me to come with him, that I would be loopy by the time we got to the surgical suite. I laughed and said, "I already am!" I made it to the operating table where he placed a mask on my face, that's all I remember. The next thing I knew I woke up ABOUT TO PUKE in the recovery room. I asked the nurse for Josh and she said, "He's pulling your car up, here's a bag in case you puke." She got me dressed and put me in a wheel chair. My surgery had lasted about 4 hours and I spent an hour in recovery, so by this time it was lunch time and SUPER hot outside. As SOON as I got in the car I puked. I feel like the recovery room nurse rushed me out and I plan to talk with Dr. Gunn about that at my next appointment.
Thankfully, our hotel was only about three miles away. Once we arrived I was still pretty out of it. Josh stayed with me and my Dad went to find a wheel chair. I was SO nauseated. He came back and said they couldn't find it, I think there was mention of them just carrying me but I'm sure they were scared to pick me up for fear of hurting the boobies. Dad decided he was going to look for the wheelchair again and came back with it! They got me up to the room and settled in an upright position with a ton of pillows in the bed. Dad sent Josh downstairs to eat and stayed with me. If I would have smelled food I would have just died.
I spent the remainder of the day sleeping and fighting nausea. It was rough. I remember one time that I got up to use the restroom, Josh was helping me...I looked down as I walked and laughed and said, "Oh my gosh, I can see my thighs!" It was a totally different view! haha!
I slept ok that night. I was propped up by tons of pillows and just slept on and off as I could.
The next morning we had to be at the doctor's office at 8am. When the doctor came in he and the nurse removed the bandages. I was standing in front of the doctor with a mirror behind him so I could see. As soon as they pulled the bandages off I looked at Josh and said, "Look at my cute little boobies!"
I had surgical glue and tape all along my incisions that were to stay in place for three weeks. Everything looked great so we headed home! Oh, and stitches on the inside.I spent that week laying around and managing my pain. It wasn't too terribly bad really. Towards the end of the week I got to where I couldn't sleep for several nights in a row. That was awful.
Let me pause here and give some MAJOR credit to my husband! Y'all, he is the best! He did the best job taking care of me and doing ALL.THE.THINGS. when I was down! I heart him!
Week 2 is when the itching started. MY GOSH the torture. On Wednesday of that week I called the doctor because I had some blood coming through the tape. I had some drainage the first few days after surgery but that had stopped and this looked different. The nurse on call got me to pull the tape off and send some pictures to them. They all but freaked out. They told me not to eat or drink anything for the rest of the night and to be at the office the next morning. I was likely headed back to surgery. SHAT. I had two holes under the tape that looked horrible. And looked like they needed to be cleaned out. I was super sad and super upset about the whole situation. I DID not want to have to recover from being put to sleep again.
We got there the next morning and got checked in for surgery. My doctor was out of town and I was going to see another one. I had heard tons of wonderful things about him, plus his name is the one on the sign so I wasn't too worried about seeing Dr. Hedden. I was called back to the same room I was in before my original surgery. The doctor came in and looked and said, " I don't think I need to go back in." I COULD HAVE KISSED HIS FACE. He went on to tell me how worried he was the night before when he saw the pictures and how we needed to proceed from there. I walked back out to the waiting room with tears in my eyes to my husband! I was SO RELIEVED. We went straight to chic-fil-a because I was STARVING. Then home to rest.
The next week was spent doctoring the bad spots and trying not to over due. I would feel great in the mornings but by lunch time my energy was gone. This went on for a few weeks and honestly 8 weeks later I finally felt like myself! One of the holes continued to get bigger, I went weekly to my doctor so he could monitor and it came to the point where I was having to stick a q-tip inside the hole several times a day to keep it cleaned out. FINALLY, my doctor decided to change the type of gauze we were using on it and TWO days later it closed up! I'm going to have a nasty scar where that place was. Right now, I don't care. No one sees my boobs but me and Josh
so I just want to be healed so that I can go back to wearing a regular bra! Well, that's pretty much it. For now anyway. I go back to the doctor Thursday and he is going to be super excited when he sees things have closed up!
Honestly, there were a couple of times that I was mad at myself for having this done BUT now that I'm pretty much healed I'm so glad I did it!
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