36 Days to a New Life!

The countdown has begun!

I am so excited to share that I will be embarking upon one of the biggest transitions in my life! I am getting a breast reduction.

Today, with 36 days to go, I decided to watch some videos of other breast reduction recipients’ recovery stories. What I noticed was how much pain they were in before and how much happier they are now. Personally, I have experienced crippling pain, particularly in the evenings. I do however have a high threshold for pain. There’s a chance most of the pain I live with, I have had so long that I don’t know the difference.

It’s also Autumn. This is the time of year I generally clean out and declutter my home. I have also been detoxifying my body and have recently let go of over 25lbs. Today, I started trying on clothes in my closet to release. One dress I had purchased almost two years ago which I never wore was in the way back. I found it at the thrift store and bought it thinking I could wear it if I lost a couple pounds. It was really cute in the store, but when I got home after shopping, I tried it on again. I looked like ground meat shoved in a sausage casing. I kept it hoping one day… And today was that day! It fits! Cute as it is, it’ll look much better with normal sized breasts.

One of my biggest challenges after losing weight is wanting to buy new clothes that fit my smaller frame. Knowing that my whole body will look different after a breast reduction has kept me from wasting money on new clothes that will no longer fit in 5 weeks. It’s hard not to want some reward clothes for the interim after all this weight loss.

Another challenge is not having any idea how I will dress a completely different body shape after my surgery. I can only try to imagine, but come up short. For my entire life, clothes have never fit me right. The best I could do was “good enough” if they fit over my boobs. When I think about it, I have been mostly dressing my boobs more than anything. I couldn’t wear certain pants with big, heavy boobs because I looked like an apple on a stick. Certain tops made my waist disappear and certain dresses just made me look like a balloon even when I was rail thin. I have learned to wear clothes that worked around my breasts.

I have come to have an affinity only for clothes that fit my boobs because I tend to be happy with what works for me. It has been a gift at times. For example, when I was single, I never noticed guys who were with other women. What was the point? However, now I am trying to get excited at all the clothes possibilities afforded to me, and it’s hard to even think about clothes that for so long have been off my radar. Does that make sense?

My last challenge is that I will have to recover. I have heard stories of people taking anywhere from 2-6 weeks to be back up and running. I would like to believe that my healing this year would make my recovery short. Yet, I am almost 48, and most of the stories I have heard are from much younger women. The young tend to heal much faster. I am anticipating being up and running again by Christmas at the latest. That gives me only a few weeks to do everything I need in preparation for being down and out for a few.

This is where I am at today. I am excited. I am nervous. I have so much to do!

But, I have 36 days to make it all happen. I wrote my rough draft for my book in about that much time, so anything is possible!