A Gaping Hole – My Breast Reduction

I had been in this consultation room before. Eight years ago, to be precise. The first time round, I sat down and asked the surgeon to chisel off 2cm worth of bone from my Grecian nose. It was too contorted to be called French, and I wasn’t emaciated enough for it to be called chic. And so, I paid the man and he did what I asked of him six months later. It is now a Soviet nose. Make of that description what you will.

So here we were again, waltzing into rooms, throwing wads of cash at perfect strangers to chop off random parts of my body. This time, the stakes were higher. I’m presenting about 2.5Kg of breast tissue that has altogether lost its very breastitude. According to Wikipedia, we were on the cusp of gigantomastia, with areolas the size of two dainty antique saucers. At least, amidst my body’s sudden three-month revolt against me, my breasts had the decency to grow uniformly. Exponentially and vertically, but nonetheless uniformly.

I wanted to make a grand entrance in that consultation room. I wanted to enter braless, lift my jumper off, sit myself down, haul my tits up and splat them onto the desk. It’s what I had been doing anyway for the last few months, whenever I sat down to work on my laptop or have a meal without a bra on. At this point, I had been caught between a rock and a hard place. I’d be too tired to carry the weight of my breasts without the support of a bra, but too agonised to spend the rest of my day with bra straps digging into my already raw-red dented shoulders. So, tables at home would provide a humiliating relief. I was finding no respite in sleep either. The solid weight of my breasts, although by now almost resting upon my armpits, were crushing my ribcage. Momentary relief came only when I squished them together, letting the palms of my hands take some of the weight. I can still recall that ghastly sense of suffocation against my sternum. Towards the end, sleeping on my front was the only option I had been left with. Folding my arms had also become an exercise in choice. I always opted to fold under; my forearms provided a comforting suspension of the weight.

My breasts didn’t just grow bigger, they grew longer and further apart from each other, like a dispersed invasion of my torso. I no longer looked sexy after a decade of perky 32Es; I looked matronly. And the patriarchy doesn’t want you to look matronly at twenty-eight. Fuck me, I didn’t want to look matronly at twenty-eight, not with this foul mouth and promising career on stage and screen.

I felt I was being punished by my body. Punished for having carried an enviable hourglass figure to the best of my abilities throughout my late teens and twenties. In the span of three months, my breasts let loose this inexplicable expansion, a vicious augmentation which my tiny 5ft 3 60Kg frame was not ready for, and never would be. I was literally dragged down by them, hunched over and bent double like an old beggar (thank you, Owen). I’ve no idea what happened or what caused it all. Maybe it’s the yoghurt in London. Suffice to say, I’ve gone lactose-free now.

And despite their hanging low from their erstwhile stretched and delicate roots, the bastards had the audacity to retain a milky and youthful plumpness, as my surgeon had pointed out during my consultation. Although, he hadn’t put it so poetically; he just said that the overall skin and fat was still very firm. The little (lol) shits didn’t even sag. They just had themselves a whimsical nosedive.

I am the descendant of a woman whose breasts were so big and bountiful, she was the resident wet nurse of some back alley in Marsa. I think of her, and every other big breasted woman who lived in an age where plastic surgery was not an option, and wonder how they coped for the rest of their lives. I couldn’t even manage a year, let alone a lifetime. Goddess of Fertility, how the hell did you cope? No wonder you were always lying down, gurl; them titties be heavy. There were times when I was so weighed down by mine, I’d fantasise about grabbing a cleaver and amputating them myself. But perhaps, I needed help.

In any case, I handed the proverbial cleaver over to my surgeon. Or perhaps, not so proverbial. I didn’t want to know the ins and outs of the gentleman’s methods (the same went for my nose), and I still don’t, for that matter. I just wanted to get butchered in my sleep and wake up a new woman.

And I did.

It’s funny what age does to you. At twenty-two, I strode into that operating theatre, hopped on to the surgical table, and said, “Morning all. Let’s get to it. Where’s the sleeping gas? I’ll see you on the other side.” But at twenty-eight, I shat myself for three days and endured a month of sleepless nights prior to the big day. I entered that operating theatre – this time in Żejtun – timid and frightened, without an ounce of bravado. But by the grace of some deity, the anaesthetist had his Elton John playlist on. I don’t know if it was coincidence or the universe at play, but I drifted off to the sound of my muse singing Rocket Man. Age had turned me into a right old pussy.

But then again, my nose job was a long-awaited exorcism, the eviction of an unwanted being that had lived on my face and in my psyche rent-free for far too long. But somehow, there was something about my breast reduction that did not feel consensual at the time. It felt as if my own body had forced me into something I wasn’t happy to go through with. I was being made to part with something that had become an intrinsic part of my identity, in spite of the obstacles it had presented over the years. Yes, I lived with a bitterness for not being able to wear miniscule high street bikinis and backless clothing throughout my twenties like the other women of my age group, but by God, I had an outstanding cleavage that had graced me with a highly successful trajectory of sexual escapades. I remember vividly, during one of the many shits I took before going in for the op, giving my old boobs one last embrace. There was a part of me that was going to miss them.

After I had woken up, the surgeon had informed us that he had removed 1Kg of flesh. My father quipped, for the price he had paid, he was hoping for a bag of mince to take home for the barbecue. He was paying for the damn thing, so I let him have his little joke.

For the six weeks of my recovery, which was the calm before the pandemic storm, I experienced phantom pains. Whilst lying in bed throughout the days, I’d be overwhelmed by this sudden awareness of a gaping hole in my body where my breasts once laid; a profoundly intimate chunk of me was no longer there, and there was all this space with which I knew not what to do. And then I’d be flooded by immense thirst and down two litres of water in one go. Oh, Catafast.

It’s been over a year now. Much to my delight, I regained all feeling in my brand-new Christmas titties (don’t ask) after ten months. The scars are feint and aesthetically tolerable; my very own battle scars. Some people get tattoos, I got a breast reduction. They’ve had many test drives, and the patriarchy thoroughly approves of them. So do I. My range of movement has increased considerably, and I’m now brave enough to dance. Swimming feels lighter, more fluid. I can wear styles I never thought I ever would, although I’m still in the habit of saying, “Huh, as if I’d ever fit into- oh, wait…” when I’m browsing lingerie stores. I’ve thrown away £1,500 worth of designer bras that were now too big for me, and although I don’t want to spend £250 on a La Perla, I’m smug in the knowledge that I can now fit into their 34DD.

To be continued…

Thanks to Nicola Abela Garrett for sharing her experience with us.

#għajjejtuxbajt

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