Make it through 2 reconstructive surgeries

It’s been more than 2 and a half years since my breast reduction. I still have absolutely no sensation, and I’m still disfigured, misshapen, lumpy, asymmetrical and WAY smaller than I ever wanted to be, and way smaller than the surgeon said I would be. The doctor who was going to do my reconstruction, including some skin grafts, has retired, and the other surgeon in the practice said that was kind of “old school” and that he wouldn’t do that technique. The best they could do for me was tattooing and putting in an implant to replace some of the lost volume. But they were quick to point out that that wouldn’t fall in the “reconstruction” category for the insurance, so I would have to pay out of pocket. And I’m poor.
I’ve been so depressed. I have to look at this horrible disfigurement every day of my life. The numbness is heartbreaking…so is knowing I’ll never be able to feel anything again the rest of my life. I can’t find shirts to fit…because if I buy them to fit my body, they hang and gap out in the chest because I have nothing left to fill them out. I told the surgeon MANY times, PLEASE do not make me disproportionately small. He said I’d be probably a C cup. I’m maybe a B on one side, and way less than an A on the side that had the most damage. It’s ridiculous. I can’t believe I had healthy tissue before the surgery and now I’m left with scarred, lumpy crap that is way too small. Healthy tissue I can never get back.
The only boyfriend I’ve had in 10 years left me after this happened. And the other day I visited my massage therapist and even he said I looked better before the surgery. I couldn’t stop crying and had to leave.
Usually this surgery is a real boon to women’s self esteem. It has destroyed mine. And you don’t realize how much our society fixates on breasts until yours are ruined. I can’t even say that at least I survived cancer. I lost mine for no other reason than that I wanted some relief for shoulder and back pain.
I was already an unattractive woman…this just made things worse. I’ve had people tell me that unattractiveness isn’t as much of an issue the older you get. With this added disfigurement, I’ll be 80 before this doesn’t matter anymore. I guess I’d better get used to being alone.

It’s been 2 years now since my surgery, and I still have no feeling whatsoever. Things haven’t improved any on the disfigurement front, either.
This past summer, I had a follow up appointment with the plastic surgeon who was going to do my reconstruction, and I was told he’d RETIRED. Bloody great. So my appointment was with another doctor, who said he wouldn’t do that kind of reconstruction, because the skin grafts were too risky. He wanted to just have a tattoo put on. What? What about the horribly unnatural shape? He said it might improve with time. But it hasn’t! I think he and the doc who did this to me are just hoping I’ll get used to it and learn to live with it. I have to see this thing every day and it always looks horrible and unnatural. Plus, I’ve been to 3 doctors now for opinions on what can be done, and the first thing every one of them asked me was, “Oh, when did you have cancer?” But when they find out it was a breast reduction gone wrong, they seem less likely to do reconstruction. Very strange.
Also, I was told that insurance will not pay for an implant to replace all the volume I’ve lost to tissue death. That would be considered “cosmetic.” I’m way too poor to pay on my own.
So I see the doc again on Wednesday. Probably so he can tell me the same thing. I don’t know what I can do. I want to ask him if he’s really telling me that there is no technique available today in the science of plastic surgery that will help make my breast look more normal. Could he really affirm that??
For plastic surgeons who work with women’s breasts all the time, they really seem to have no clue what they really mean to us. The surgeon who did this made me way smaller than I asked for, then screwed things up so I lost even more tissue to necrosis. And his response was “you need to learn to rise above your breasts.” Excuse me, but if that was his attitude, then that is what he should have told me at my consultation, and NOT after he disfigured me for life. The numbness is quite heartbreaking, too. Both sides. It’s like they just died that day.
Also, you never realize how much breasts are talked about and featured in the media until you know yours are wrecked and no amount of effort on your part will fix anything.

I had a breast reduction this past February.
I went in pink and healthy, and came out purple and dying. Apparently some vessels that should have been spared were cut, and/or circulation just didn’t establish for me.
I lost a lot of tissue and had to pack a large wound in gauze every day for months. It’s just as horrifying as you might think to have to watch part of your body die and rot and then be left with a gaping wound.
My dad was a large animal vet, and consequently I had some pretty gory stories to gross out my classmates on the playground…so I’m not really very squeamish, but nothing quite prepared me for this.
It really bums me out because the surgery is SO common, and what happened to me happens to less than 1% of patients. I’ve lost specialized tissue that I can never get back. I had to lie there while the doctor cut dead stuff out of me me week after week.
The wound finally healed up, but now I’m kinda disfigured. And I still have a lot of necrotic tissue that my body needs to work on to soften.
I’ll probably have to wait about a year from now until my body is ready for more surgery. I need one surgery to reconstruct and make things look more normal, and another surgery to put in a prosthesis to replace some of the volume I lost when all that stuff died.
I’ve cried a lot about this. Lotsa “why me” and “why’d I ever do this” but it’s done now and I just have to wait and hope things turn out as well as they can. I’m also hoping that I’ll still get some nerve regeneration. Most people have feeling back by now. I have none.
What a horrible ordeal this has been. I just remember waking up in the recovery room and realizing it was over and being so relieved and excited that I made it and that things would be better now. I had NO idea what I was in for.