Ren's Top Surgery stuff: the listicle

3 months post-op
Dr. Paul Steinwald
Golden, CO, USA


This is a T-anchor mammoplasty where a pedicle kept the nipple attached. Because I really, really wanted to keep my nipples attached.

I had my first consult with Dr. Steinwald in 2008 when he was in private practice outside of Chicago, IL.

Life got in the way and I was not able to pursue having top surgery at that time.

Then, suddenly, in my last year of grad school, I was like: HOLY $#!% I HAVE TO DO THIS ASAP! Before I have to get a job and pay off loans and ahhhh.

So it felt kind of sudden.

Over the course of 2015-16 I consulted with 3 different surgeons in the Boston area: Dr. Tobias at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Slama at Boston Medical Center, and Dr. Bartlett in private practice.

None of them were confident about performing the procedure I wanted.

Dr. Tobias was the most rude about it - he sputtered that what I asked for was "impossible," and went on about how he wanted "his guys" to look. When I explained that I was interested in function over form, he looked at me as if I had grown an extra head.

Dr. Slama was a little like, "Sure, well, we can try that!" but was saying I'd probably need several revisions because I had so much more tissue than the men with gynecomastia on whom he normally does this type of surgery.

Dr. Bartlett thoughtfully, tactfully explained that, with my level of ptosis, and my frame (I am only 4'11") I would probably be unsatisfied with the results - that he could do this, but it would probably still look like I had small breasts.

Dr. Steinwald tends to be overconfident. But: I wanted to believe!!! Lol. He looked at my updated pictures, said he was confident, so I booked the surgery, raised the funds, made the arrangements, and went out there to have this surgery.

When he saw me in person, Dr. Steinwald seemed . . . less confident. 

Y'all: my boobs were saggy.

Steinwald was like, "We're keeping you intact, right? That's why you're here."

And I was like: "Um. YEAH."

I mean, really - don't even say anything different!!!

So he did it. Omg.

Mental prep:

+ therapy (which I had been in already, but - did I mention this felt sudden?)

+ the book Prepare For Surgery: Heal Faster by Peggy Huddleston (http://healfaster.com/)

+ hypnotherapy with Samuel Lurie (http://tghypno.com/)

Physical prep:

I really did not do much for this. I was exhausted and out of shape because grad school. But I also have several chronic health conditions and I was already doing my utmost to stay healthy in that regard, so - I figured that was enough!

One thing I did was a consultation with Alan Bittenson, Biomechanic to discuss my posture. I have had bad posture forever and I wanted to start working on improving this before having surgery. Alan was fantastic to work with, super respectful and professional. He did a thorough assessment and gave me some stretches to do, which started helping right away.

Most of my issue was tight chest muscles - clearly relevant to having chest surgery! I did these stretches up until the day of surgery, and then started again after my drains came out. This was really invaluable - I was very hunched over until I could get back to doing these.

Financial prep:

+ work and save as much as possible

+ fundraiser online via YouCaring.com (which takes no fees, though there are credit card processing fees - the other downside is that it doesn't record info from people except for an email address, so I had to email thank you notes and ask folks for their info if they wanted one of the incentives I had listed)

+ asked family for help (I am very lucky that my extended family is supportive of me and had some cash to contribute)

+ got the word out in general: not only did this help a lot with my fundraiser (Friend A asking all of A's friends to contribute = a big difference) but I found out about resources I never would've known about. Like:

+ loan from a local non-profit that provides emergency financial assistance in the form of interest-free loans to people of my religious minority - I only found out about this because a friend of mine used to work for them.

+ real life fundraiser - this was mildly successful. Honestly, it was more mental prep than financial. I just did not make much cash from it. Part of it was that the whole "fundraising for my top surgery!!" thing was already pretty embarrassing. The online fundraiser was bad enough and I just could not put my whole heart into running a fundraiser, IRL, for myself. I did have a lot of sweet friends and colleagues donate raffle items, and another kind friend sold the tickets at the door, and a generous business owner donated space, and other folks made food . . . so it felt very *nice*, and supportive, and that was awesome. But it was not a money-maker.

Logistical prep, other:

+ asked a couple of close friends to support me after surgery - one had been in the loop ongoing, the other had just moved to Colorado and so was pretty local anyway.

+ asked my mom for recovery help as well (I had been keeping her in the loop this whole time - I am very lucky to have a supportive mom - so she was ready)

+ got an AirBNB very close to the surgery center (this seemed like the most bang for the buck)

+ airplane tickets (thanks to credit cards!)

+ time off work (thanks boss and co-workers!)

+ misc logistics that I gathered from reading stuff like these links: 

https://neutrois.me/2012/10/09/top-surgery-tips-and-advice/

 http://ask.metafilter.com/281055/Supporting-someone-recovering-from-top-surgery

How did it go?

+ felt very relaxed and confident going into surgery, thanks to work with Samuel of Transform & Grow Hypnosis

- forgot to put the anti-nausea patch on the morning of because the Uber driver was early

+ anesthesiologist (can't recall her name and feel so bad about this!) was soooo nice even though she clearly thought I was a crunchy nut, coming in there with all of my Peggy Huddleston hypnotic suggestion crap

- I barfed after surgery . . . A LOT

+ the Center for Plastic Surgery in Golden, CO gives out very nice barf bags

- my poor mom

+ she was awesome though

+ much easier recovery than I had expected: able to get in and out of bed on my own later that same day, pain meds for only about 5 days post-surgery, drains out within a week

- mostly just very, very tired

- one drain seemed blocked and I went in to have it adjusted - apparently they could hear me yelling and cursing from the waiting room. Hahaha. (I laugh now but it was NOT fun or funny!)

- my poor mom! (Can you tell I feel guilty for putting her through this?!)

+ mom stayed until I was doing quite well, so by the time my friend came I was ready for the lower level of help (and, um, supervision - no one can tell you "no, stop! I am doing that FOR you!" quite like a parent).

+ everything about my chest is working just great.