Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Finally, Full Frontal

I'm sure that got the straight guys' attention. I'm going to get a lot of flack from my rather chaste mother and her meddling friends who tell me every fucking time I see them: "You'll never get a man when you are SO honest and put everything out there on the blog." Ahem, you know who you are.

A.) As if I would want a man who doesn't respect me for my writing and who I am and B.) Women who are going through, will go through or know people who are going through Breast Cancer take comfort in my frankness, okay? I'm sure that some of you readers who are still in the reconstruction process will be heartened to see how PERFECT your boobies can look after Breast Cancer! Even Ben was amaaazed when he saw the photos last night.

Okay, so. A recap of the final surgery. Hemley went with me, since he's good company, baby-sat my Percocet riddled ass yesterday, he has tattoos and is not squeamish. Plus, he's a gay guy who doesn't mind looking at boobies. They have to heal for a few days a la regular tatts. The worst part of that is no cardio because no sweating. But I'm going to ignore that one. Or at least do something where I don't sweat SO much.

Now, it wouldn't be a true Stephanie Green day if something coincidental/portentous/fucking whackadoodle happened, right? So after the surg—which, no, didn't hurt—we went to a deli in the Jewish section of the beach. Just a random deli for a celebratory, fattening lunch.

"Oh my God!" Hemley said. "Dude, that's the guy from Miami Ink! Omigod! You have to say something! How weird—come on, we go from your tattooing and then run into the biggest tattoo artist in town. You have to say something!"

"That is weird," says Stephanie on a Percocet and Klonopin. "Okay, I'll go over to him after we finish, but that's not a very pleasant thing to reveal over lunch."

"Fuck it, Green, this is the perfect blog story!" See how I humiliate myself for my loyal readers?

So: "Uh, I'm really sorry to bother you, but I actually just came from a different sort of tattooing. Where, uh, I had breast cancer w/reconstruction and I just, uh, got my nipple color tattooed." He was not alone. Two other burly tatted up guys and what appeared to be Avi's daughter. Oh, shit, just read that he's single. He's hot too. And Jewish. But no tattoo-wearers for this prissy poo.

"Actually," he said, "I've done that once before." (BTW, what kind of woman goes to a disgusting, germy tattoo parlor to get this kind of medical work done. If I ever even entered a tattoo parlor I would need to douse myself in Purell afterwards. Can you tell that I think tattoos are dis-gus-ting? And Jews should know better.

Anyway, he was friendly enough but doesn't seem to have a sense of humor. Here's Avi's bio. I think he's the head honcho.

So now we're done people. Lots of you have taken this 18-month-crazy-ass journey with me. And I really love you guys for that. The kindness of anonymous and named readers is really an amazing thing.

And I'm one of the few lucky ones who's not only healthy, but has amaaaazing boobs and amaaaazing hair. Kudos to Dr. Gary Rosenbaum for being the perfectionist that he is. I'm forever grateful. Okay, here come the pics. We'll start at PG and work our way down.

Lvg condo for the LAST surgical procedure until I yank the ovaries, which I'll wait to do until I'm ready to write the sequel. (Mom, did you even notice that I liberated your Balenciaga from your pantry? Remember the rule of thumb is if you don't notice for a month+ it's mine! Mwah haha!)


In the waiting room, natch. Nobody else was there.


I love this one. Leave it to Hems to make sure I look good in photos and to delete the bad ones. So, these are the girls sans-tattooing. You can tell that there is some coloration on the 'nipples' even without tattooing. Eventually though that would fade.


Explaining the process to me. Mixes several different color inks; when it fades it will be a nice light pink. If I want it darker, I can go back in two months.


Esther, the permanent makeup artist, begins. She did such a great job I'm thinking of having my brows done.



I think this is such a nice photo that I may actually frame it. I mean, is this a perfect breast shot or no?

Avi looks thrilled to meet me, right?

So there, you go. Full circle. And just in case you're new, you may want to check out (very graphic and perhaps disturbing) post to see how they looked at the beginning—18 months ago.

xoxo