The "R" Word

When I was in high school, there was a girl named Brittney Smith, a name that’s common enough that I don’t feel the need to change it to protect the innocent. Brittney was big into gymnastics; she was about 5’3” but would pound about 2,000 calories a day with a can of tuna in between meals because she would burn every single one of them with a workout schedule that was downright Olympian. Three hours a day, six days a week, and nearly every weekend spent out of town at a competition. One or two states away. Her parents’ Ford Windstar racked up a shitload of miles.

Something about gymnastics girls. Because of how demanding the schedule is and how always your body is in survival mode, there’s not a lot of energy leftover for the non-essential body functions. Like puberty. See, in exchange for having shoulders like a mini linebacker, a lot of girls who do high-level, ultra-competitive physical activities like gymnastics trade out by having their hormones repressed for years, sometimes, after which puberty would otherwise settle in.

Brittney was 15 by the time she decided that the Olympics weren’t going to happen. She was good, but she wasn’t going to Sydney, so she decided to throw in the towel and focus her attentions on other pursuits. And, within a couple months of her last gym meet, puberty struck with a vengeance.

By the time she came back from summer vacation, she jumped a few inches in height, got her acne years after the rest of us did, had her first period, and (like you couldn’t see this coming), was sporting a pretty crazy rack.

She was a nice person, but we weren’t the best of friends, and we never ran in the same circles. But it wasn’t the biggest high school in the world, so everyone kinda knew everybody and were aware of everyone’s business. By the time she got to an H cup by the end of the school year, she found herself in a vastly different position than a year before.

She never quite got used to them. She didn’t ask for breasts that looked like scaled-down soccer balls, but she did get a perpetual note to get out of gym class (ironies abound). From what I recall, she tried everything: baggy sweaters when it was hot outside; ace bandages that compressed them as much as possible was a fashion statement that didn’t last too long for her; there was one day when she kind of freaked out after being pulled into the principal's office because, as it was noted, her quadriboob (a.k.a. bra overflow) was “proving to be too much of a distraction,” though whether it was a distraction to the other students, certain members of the faculty, or both, was never determined. Doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking about it to figure out that commentary was coming from mean girls, horny guys, prudish female teachers, and male teachers who were (hopefully) trying their best to avert their eyes. “Busty Brittney,” as she was called, almost colloquially, by a pretty substantial amount of students, with an inflection that ran the gamut from lascivious to mocking to sympathetic.

Another summer, and half of the following year, and the calendar had turned to Christmastime. The attention was driving her crazy (as if teenage girls don’t get enough creepers hollering at them from across the street). The deep grooves that had been carved into her shoulders were causing her a lot of pain. She either dressed in tops that weren’t too dissimilar to flour sacks, or ones that couldn’t help make her look, well, slutty. Word through the grapevine was that Brittney had been talking to plastic surgeons. By the time everyone went on Christmas break, my own small group of friends would bring it up. Had we heard anything? Was she going through with it? What was the fate of Busty Brittney?

She wasn’t in homeroom when we got back from break, but the rumor mill was stirring in full force. We were just stupid kids, and a lot of us had never known someone our own age who had had a surgery before, so the hot gossip was that she moved away to live in a monastery, or that she had died on the operating table, or that she was purchased by a Russian oligarch to be a part of his harem (it was public school, and even though we didn’t know whether Russian oligarchs had harems, we at least knew what oligarchs were, so thanks for that, Mrs. Crenshaw’s world history class).

The answer was a lot simpler, of course. One of my friends was dropping Brittney’s homework off for her so she wouldn’t get too far behind. She had decided to go under the knife; insurance covered some of it; Christmas for Brittney that year involved a bandage wrapped around her chest and some vicodin. She had still been recovering. So when she came back to school, disproving the theories of human trafficking, we were happy for her. She was sporting a pair of Bs and signed up for the track team.

Well, most of us were happy for her. The mean girls receded into the woodwork, because Brittney was just a normal girl again. The guys were bummed, of course, feeling that her decision was a travesty — a perfect waste of some great tits. And Brittney expressed the same sentiments that many a breast reduction patient has expressed: that it was scary as hell going into it, but if she had the decision to make again, she wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

My guess is that people like Brittney aren’t too uncommon. I’d venture to guess that most of you reading this right now have known someone, either directly or through acquaintance, who got sick of their giant hooters. You probably have feelings about it one way or the other, but even as much as they may turn you on, I’d surmise that the majority of you would agree that a woman should be free to make her own decisions about her own body. After all: these fuckers ain’t light.

I think about Brittney from time to time, but the last time I really focused on her was about a year and a half ago after my last major “spurt” (the big one that gave you the Heather you’ve all come to know and love). And like Brittney almost two decades before, I was sitting in a plastic surgeon’s office.

“Heather, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve been batting your case around with some colleagues of mine.” Dr. Procter (not his real name) was a nice guy. Professional, affable, and as the first guy who had poked around my boobs in quite some time, suitably non-creepy. This was our second meeting. “Second opinions, so you don’t have to.”

I was still sitting on the examination table. I didn’t exactly feel like going through the lifting and hefting that’s usually required to put a bra back on, and even though the good doctor was a nice guy, I wanted to cover myself up. It was chilly in the office, and I get a little self conscious about my nipples getting hard in front of company.

“Sure, yeah, that’s fine,” I said as I pulled the sweatshirt back. Something baggy and camouflaging, like the ones Brittney used to wear.

“It’s just that, most cases where there’s a lot of tissue, it happens all at once. Onset of puberty, pregnancy, hormonal changes, things like that,” the doctor said. “But you’re a tricky one. What concerns me is this history you have.”

“OK,” I said. This was the meeting where I was hoping he would pull out the marker and start drawing lines across my boobs — a preview of his plan of attack. I had been watching a lot of plastic surgery videos on Youtube, so why was a surprised when everything didn’t turn out like it does on the internet?

“This growth of yours, it happens suddenly and without warning. Now, it’s not so uncommon for someone to undergo a reduction and add on some tissue later on. That’s normal. But you have to remember that this isn’t an easy outpatient procedure, either. There’s a lot of recovery involved here, especially with a case as extreme as yours.”

He could have said ‘special’ or ‘unique,’ but why the hell not. It’s not like ‘extreme’ is inappropriate.

“A standard mammoplasty,” he continued, “where we reduce you to a comfortable size, is what we’d consider under normal circumstances. The risk, in this case, comes from whether or not you would…”

“Grow again?” I took advantage of a brief pause in the conversation.

“Like I said. It’s not uncommon. My concern... is that it would happen during the healing process. Then we’re talking about the possibility of major complications.”

I tried to match his clinical approach. Emotion could come later. “Busting my stitches,” I said. My mind flashed to that literally happening. I remember my jaw tightening.

“It could substantially disrupt the healing process,” he continued. “And with an episode as pronounced as the one you just had, yeah. It could be an emergency situation.”

The way Dr. Procter put it, there were two options. One was a complete mammoplasty. A 100% mastectomy where as much of the breast tissue is removed as possible. The suggestion, alone, started a knot forming in my gut. Even though I was sitting on an examination table, with the largest pair of breasts (by percentage of body weight, thank you very much) this surgeon had ever seen resting in my lap (and this was a guy who specialized in breast reductions)... Ugh, no. No matter the size, breasts are a part of a woman’s body. The only thing I’d heard more than “I’m glad I got the reduction” was “I feel empty after the mastectomy.”

Plus, there was no way to guarantee that all the tissue could be removed. And if they did decide to grow again, even years later? They would grow lumpy, unevenly, and would probably require another surgery so I didn’t look just… weird in a bathing suit. I try to tell myself that I’m not a vain person. I just didn’t want to have to worry about my chest looking like a battlefield hellscape of scars and lumps. Not to mention the physical, financial and emotional pain of recovery, and another recovery, and another?

The second option… was to wait. It had hardly been two months since my last spurt (the big ‘un), and up until that point, I had rocketed through cup sizes pretty unpredictably. Spurt here, nothing for six months; another spurt there, and then another one in three months, eight months, one month…

“Wait… Like, for how long?”

He pursed his lips together and gave a small shrug. “That’s… kind of up to you. But… I have to honestly say that I wouldn’t feel comfortable signing off on something like this until a year has gone by, at least.”

“A year,” I said in a hollow tone.

“At least, yeah,” he said. There was a definitive tone in his voice. “I know this body isn’t easy to live with. And I know that either of these options doesn’t sound too appealing. But next summer, hopefully nothing’s changed, and we can talk again. We can go from there.”

I thought about it for a moment. I wasn’t going to be able to go home and circle a date on my calendar. I was already flashing through the clothing I had from the past winter, and what, out of all of it, would fit. I thought of how hot it was going to be when I went outside, 95 degrees, and wearing a thick sweater. I tried the best I could to keep the most foreboding image out of my mind: of that feeling of tremendous lethargy that would come with lying helplessly in bed as my breasts grew, uncontrollably, again. Would I come to a point where I would even begin to entertain this surgeon’s “first option?” What kind of patience would I be able to muster if my boobs got even larger, and the countdown clock for a reasonably safe “sign-offable” surgery had to be reset? T-minus 365 days, 364, 363…

That appointment took place in August of 2017. And as most of you know, here I am, tits and all. I didn’t set a new appointment to see the doctor again (he did call, which was nice of him, just to see how I was doing, as if I needed a reminder). For now, the operating table is, well, off the table.

There are a couple of reasons for this. There is, first of all, a lightness that comes along with being reasonably certain that I’m out of the woods, at least as any further freakish growth is concerned. Maybe I just spent so long living in constant fear of another spurt that I can see the silver lining. Better the certainty of what you have than the uncertainty, and all that.

But more so (and something I wasn’t expecting): I feel like I’m still learning. Of course this body is a burden, more often than not. But it’s teaching me a lot about myself, and the perceptions of others. It’s hardly ever easy, but it’s getting easier, and through it all, I can actually see the glint of a new type of self-confidence I never would have gotten otherwise.

Plus, I get reminded of something else. Every woman with large breasts has thought, at one point or another, of getting a reduction. I don’t care who it is — that thought has gone through all of our heads at least once. And a lot of them have gone for it. But the ones who haven’t? They have their own clarion call: “I can get a reduction whenever I want… so what’s the rush?”

I think this sums up where I am at this point. If another few years go by, maybe I’ll have gotten everything from the girls that I can. Maybe, then, I’ll schedule a consultation and will go from there. Life always changes, and as I’ve discovered since this whole messed-up journey began, you never know quite how you’ll change as time goes by, and how circumstances will change you. I’m not going to be facetious and say that you’ve always gotta stay optimistic, always look on the bright side, and all those stupid cocktail napkin platitudes. But sometimes the things that change you for the best are the most difficult and unexpected things of all.

Or, maybe not.

I was happy for Brittney when she had her surgery. As far as she was concerned, her breasts were a burden, and they were restricting the life she wanted to lead. She made the decision that was best for her, and more power to her. You go girl. Live for you.

Still, I do recall (not going to lie) slightly envying the attention that Brittney was getting, I can’t deny that there may have been occasions where I sided with some of those who wondered: why hurry? Why not just keep them for a while and see how it goes? Why beeline to a plastic surgeon, when, instead, you can… have a little fun with them for a while? You've got a good thing going, so... what’s the rush?

I now know some of the answers, of course. I know about the back pain. I know about the red marks on shoulders, and the impossibility of a normal day spent shopping. I know about the stares, catcalls, lewd comments, scowls, scoffs, and the general inability for anyone to think that there may be a brain attached to these two things. And there are many, many days when I wish I could just snap my fingers and be... normal. 

But. There are few better feelings than knowing that you’ve dashed apart someone’s preconceptions. There’s a quiet confidence in learning how to disregard the occasional look of scorn and disgust in favor of the vastly more plentiful glances of well-intentioned awe. Life gets boring sometimes, and we get stuck with that boredom so easily; you certainly can’t say I’m not interesting. I certainly can’t say it’s not an adventure, even if it’s kind of perverse one. They’re also fun to play with (there, I said it), and they’ve opened me up to a venue of sexuality I probably never would have taken the time to get acquainted with before. While they certainly don’t define me, they are, more and more, a part of me. An all-access pass to a vastly different swath of experiences than C-cup Heather would have had. Even if it's a trial by fire, some days, at least we all seem to be living in a sort-of golden age of body positivity. 

To each their own. I am profoundly glad that we live in an age where breast reductions exist. Some women want them, and deserve to have them. And sure, who knows. There might come a day when I decide to have one myself.

But for now, they stay. I’m just not done with them yet.