Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I know I said, and thought, that I wouldn't look at them, but I did. After taking the bandages off during my first shower in nine days and seeing that the penis nipples no longer had such huge erections, I figured what the hell. So I looked in the mirror. And let me tell you, my boobs look fanfuckingtastic. Maybe I was a little more freaked out yesterday than I should've been—who me, dramatic?—or maybe the penis nipples were just really turned on. But seriously, seriously my surgeon (Dr. Gary Rosenbaum, FYI) is a genius.

In a few months—perhaps even by February, a year post-mastectomy—if you didn't know my history, I think you'd have to get about six inches from my chest even to notice that something is a little amiss. And the area where the skin graft came from down there, barely anything. When you look at photos of most women's mastectomies out there, they're pretty fucking scary. As I've said before, I have no horizontal scars and the vertical ones will be compeletely faded shortly. Which leaves us with, well, two manmade, perfectly symmetrical, finely crafted breasts. The left breast, the toxic one that had a lumpectomy in addition to mastectomy, is now corrected even more, so that both breasts are basically the same. The aureolas are still stitched and pink—from irritation I suppose—but they're otherwise perfect. The perfect size. And the penis nipples are weird, no doubt, but within a few weeks I think they'll be pretty normal. So instead of thinking of myself as a cyborg, perhaps more something along the lines of Dr. Rosenbaum's David.

With a smaller penis(es).

Well, I'm out like—in the youthful vernacular Laura taught Jeff and me last night—an erection in sweatpants?.