RSS

Category Archives: breast lift

Four Years And Still In Mourning

Today I gave a pep talk to a woman I admire in hopes that some of my own life experience might help her. She is having problems with both men and women who feel that it is okay to say cruel and hateful things to her simply because they disagree with her. The tone of her initial post felt like she was about ready to throw in the towel on doing the work she enjoys because of these hateful people. So I posted the following to her:

I want to tell you a story and I hope this helps you get your feet under you a bit better. Several years ago, back before I was a skeptic and before I had a decent sense of self worth, I had a boob job. I hated the way they looked after breastfeeding two kids and I thought that, as I approached the age of 40, it would make me feel better about myself.

I ended up developing necrosis due to unconfirmed surgical complications and I lost both of my nipples and areolae. I don’t know if there’s a worse experience than watching your own intimate body parts rot away but if there is, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

There’s much more to the story which you can read on http://boobcast.com if you are interested.

About a year after my chest healed, (I was severely deformed and required two reconstruction surgeries which i have long since had, to rousing success) I was finally in a mental state to start writing about what happened to me. I was bound and determined to write about it because if I DIDN’T write about it publicly, then, in my mind, the hack that did this to me would win.

That wouldn’t do.

There were SO many times when I had to stop in the middle of writing a post and go have a good, long cry. But I did it. I did it because I REFUSED to let my situation dictate my life. I refused to let what others told me change what I truly thought was the right thing to do.

Boobcast has made a real difference in women’s lives. I get regular emails telling me as much. I talk to women regularly who are scared and in need of reassurance and advice. I’m so very grateful I can do that.

When I was a little girl my father told me to “Stand and fight if you believe you’re right”. I learned determination from my mother who, after a motorcycle accident that left her in ICU for six months, taught herself to walk again when doctors said she never would.

Believe me when I tell you that I know it’s hard. I know it’s disheartening and some days you just want to give up and let the world go to Hell in its own little monogrammed handbasket. And some day you may decide you’ve had enough and that’s okay.

But please don’t let THEM make that decision for you.

I really hope that helps her. She’s doing good work in the skeptical and critical-thinking community and I would hate to see her give up because of all the hate mail and awful things people say about her in the blogosphere.

Unfortunately, this good deed of mine seems to have had some emotional backlash. I realized that even though Boobcast is doing good work, I am still in mourning for my loss. It has been four years as of yesterday since that first surgery and it still hurts emotionally. Not to the degree it used to, but it’s still a visceral pain. I feel nauseous remembering what I went through. I have tears in my eyes remembering what it was like and I wonder if I will ever completely heal emotionally from this.

I have had people suggest that I just walk away from Boobcast for a while. I can’t do that. Women email me regularly asking questions and seeking advice. I know what it’s like to be that terrified so abandoning the thing I have created here is not an option.

The upside is that where there were once great, wracking sobs, there are now just tears and a dull ache. Four years seems like forever and a single heartbeat at the same time. I guess I’m healing. They keep telling me that healing takes time. It’s just taking so long. I know that it will never be truly over because I will always bear the scars of reconstruction as a reminder. I will also always be here for others going through this nightmare.

I can’t abandon my post as long as I’m needed.

It has also been suggested that I start talking to women’s groups about what I have experienced. With the settlement I have, I’m not sure I can do that, but I’m looking in to it. The recent cease and desist letter I got about my comments on the Complaints Board scares the Hell out of me. We’re having a lawyer look at that to make sure that it only pertains to the settlement and not the case itself. If that is the case and it only pertains to the settlement, I will probably start doing that.

In the mean time, life continues on. I still need to have one last round of tattooing done and hopefully that will be it for the medical stuff. I’m thinking that perhaps I’ll do it in November or December, depending on the tattooists schedule. I’ll post when I have something concrete.

My Legal Settlement – An Update

19 Sep

I finally found a way to login on the complaints board (see the first part of this posting below) and post a response to the accusation that, it appears, was most likely made by him or a member of the surgeon’s staff. I also sent an email to his office through his website letting him know that I knew about that comment.

In addition, I let him know that, because that comment was so obviously written by someone in his office, I considered that a breach of contract. On the down side, our lawyer has said that just because someone on his side broke the contract, that doesn’t mean that *I* can. So I’m just going to keep linking back to that initial post I made before the contract was signed whenever I need to reference the surgeon.

[Editor's Note: This post has been edited and certain links removed on the advice of my lawyer. Please visit here for details]

Leave a comment

Posted by Maria_Myrback on September 19, 2011 in anchor breast lift, bad bedside manner, be yourself, boob job, breast implants, breast lift, breast necrosis, cosmetic surgery, emotional healing, emotional scars, implants, Law, Legal, mastopexy, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Surgery, Surgical complications

My Legal Settlement

17 Sep

Earlier today I received the following email from a regular reader here at the blog. For personal reasons, the reader has asked that they be kept anonymous.

Maria,

In your blog, you said you signed papers with your doctor not to name them. Did you have a settlement? Did you have the option not to settle, instead spread their name all over? Or did an attorney advice you about libel or defamation?

If you can comment without naming the doctor, much appreciated.

I have written before about how I tried to deal with the legal ramifications of what happened to me. I also wrote about the settlement that currently binds me from mentioning the name of the surgeon. HOWEVER, before I agreed to the settlement that prohibits me and my “agents” from mentioning the surgeon’s name, I wrote a few posts. Those are listed below in my response to the reader’s questions.

Dear Reader;

I am, unfortunately, also bound from talking about the terms of the settlement as well. I DID have the option not to settle. At that point I was deeply clinically depressed and traumatized. I didn’t want that person to have anything to do with my medical care any more. I would start shaking every time I had an appointment. I just wanted it to be over with so I went with the first available way out.

People keep telling me that I’m brave. This is one of those instances where I was not. I DID put up a synopsis of what happened on the Complaints Board [Editor's Note: This post has been edited on advice from my lawyer.Please visit the link for details]

I never spoke to a lawyer about defamation, but I was a journalist so I know that once I signed those papers, I am legally bound, along with my “agents”, not to reveal his name. HOWEVER, those two links were written up before the contract went into effect.

Here is where things get interesting. I just happened to notice that a person I am presuming is the doctor in question or one of the 2-3 staff members familiar with the case (aka one of his “agents”), made a brief response to my initial post on the Complaints Board. I am presuming this because of the use of the phrase “ridiculous herbal remedy’ in the response. That is FAR too personal to have been written by someone just reading entries on the complaints board.

And so, dear reader, I am going to war. For some reason I am having technical difficulties logging on and making a response to that accusation. Once I do, you all may want to stop by for a look because I can guarantee that things are going to get very, VERY interesting.

This surgeon does not know with whom he is messing. He’s about to find out.

My Emotional Healing – One Year Later

14 Apr

In just a few days I will celebrate my one year breast reconstruction anniversary. It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed already. Yet here I sit with the Twins neatly filling out my New Orleans t-shirt.

My regular readers know that the time before my reconstruction was really bad. I talked honestly about feeling like a deformed, sub-human thing. I considered myself to be mangled and a not human being.

I also talked about wanting to kill myself. More than that: I had a plan for killing myself. I suffered from severe suicidal depression because of the mangled remnants of my chest. Once during the period that I had been hooked up to the VAC machine I called suicide hotline. She saved my life and I am grateful. She’s one of the reasons that I write this blog.

Unfortunately, the time period before the surgery was MUCH worse. I knew I was much more serious about it than I had been previously because I wasn’t talking about it at all. My performance was SO convincing that no one in the family had the slightest idea that I had a plan in place to end my life if financing for the reconstruction had not come through.

I’ve come a LONG way since then. I’m much more content. I have real periods of happiness now. I understand that the severe depression was solely situational. In a case like that, no medication would have worked.

I LOVE the Twins. They have some minor flaws and quirks that I will talk about in another post. But I am SO grateful to have them that the flaws are a relatively minor issue and are, for all intents and purposes, inconsequential.

As happy as I am to have them, I still have some unresolved anger issues. I’m not normally a violent person. Nor do I generally wish for harm to come to people. There IS, however, one exception. The surgeon. I still feel he was negligent. I think that something happened during the initial augmentation and lift that led to the subsequent necrosis and I wish him to suffer just as much as I did.

I will not cause him harm. I’m not that kind of person. But I would definitely throw a party if someone were to pulverize and powder the bones of his hands with a sledgehammer. That’s all. I don’t want him dead. Death is too easy. I just don’t want him to do to someone else what he did to me.

So, yes, I’m angry. I feel cheated. But I was so emotionally fucked up that I settled just to get the hell away from him. How’s THIS for screwed up? In the state of Florida no other plastic surgeon will even SEE you while you’re under the care of another plastic surgeon.

I have more emotional healing to do even after a year. I have these moderate anger issues to deal with and I still have sorrow surrounding the loss of my original breasts. There are times when I write a particularly difficult article here and it leaves me in tears.

Please understand that I do not blame this blog for my tears. Boobcast has been a haven of sanity. Writing these articles, being this open and honest, has kept me sane. I still just have brief periods where I grieve the loss of my breasts. I grieve for what I put my husband and family through. I grieve for two years of my life lost.

Yeah. I still have some healing to do.

Leave a comment

Posted by Maria_Myrback on April 14, 2010 in anniversary, be yourself, boob job, breast implants, breast lift, breast reconstruction, cosmetic surgery, emotional healing, emotional scars, fear, Flashbacks, Recovery, Uncategorized

Why I Had A Boobjob

11 Apr

This is the week of my one year breast reconstruction anniversary. To celebrate, I’m telling it like it is. In today’s article I’m giving a no-holds-barred account of why I had the initial surgery that led to losing my breasts and the subsequent reconstruction.

This isn’t an easy article for me to write. I’m definitely not the same person I was then. Not by a long shot. Of course something like having my breasts basically rot off was going to have an impact. I would like to believe that it changed me for the better.

Now I’d like to take you on a trip in the Way Back Machine (My thanks to Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman) to 1981. I was either 13 or 14 and in Junior High. That is, of course, the time when little girls start developing breasts. I was no different.

I had no idea that I was developing. I just didn’t notice that anything was different. Neither did my parents. I had to be told by a friend of mine that I shouldn’t wear a sheer dress shirt because boys could see my boobies. So because I didn’t know what was going on and neither of my parents paid attention to my development, I went without training bras for much longer than I should have.

Fast forward to 1983. I was 16. We were at the only decent women’s clothing shop in Powell, Wy. My mother had dragged me there to go bra shopping. The woman doing the fitting said I had pendulous breasts. Of course I had no idea what that meant then and there was no real way to look it up. There was no internet and research materials were really limited in a town no bigger than a hiccup. But that stuck with me. Somehow I knew from the tone of her voice that there was something wrong with me.

Fast forward to 40 years old: Two children and two decades later my breasts looked like flat wedges of flaccid flesh and my nipples pointed at my toes. I HATED my breasts. So I started looking for a plastic surgeon to give me perky boobs. I had two consultations and both said the same thing. My breasts had degraded as far as they could go. They weren’t, at least, going to get any worse. Both gave me a presentation about the anchor lift type of mastopexy because of the degradation level of my nipples. After a few days to research and review the information, I showed it all to Ken. Along with the price.

Here’s where my judgement went south and obsession set in. Ken said he didn’t think we could afford it. I told him the stories that I have written down above. He told me if I could find a way to do it for less, than I could do it.

That’s when I found the guy who did the initial surgery. He was part of our barter network. He offered his surgical fees on barter. All we had to pay for was the implants and the clinic fees.

Yes, I was so desperate and so obsessed that I went against all advice and had the surgery done by a doctor on barter.

I DID have the forethought to investigate him and there was nothing negative in his record. There was no indication aside from his abrupt, borderline-rude bedside manner that he was inept.

I say this with tears in my eyes: I just wanted pretty boobies. Every woman I had seen in magazines and on TV had pretty breasts and I just wanted that to be me for once in my life.

So I did something insanely stupid and it cost me dearly.

Leave a comment

Posted by Maria_Myrback on April 11, 2010 in anniversary, bad bedside manner, be yourself, boob job, breast implants, breast lift, conformity, cosmetic surgery, emotional scars, mastopexy, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery Disaster, Surgery, Surgical complications, Surgical Fees, Uncategorized

Nerve Damage With Breast Augmentation

10 Apr

With any type of surgery you can expect to lose some sensation. Sometimes it’s just temporary. Sometimes the nerves are just so damaged that there’s no way you’ll regain all the feeling you had before. Breast surgery is one of those situations where you will never be the same.

Even if you have a transumbilical breast augmentation (TUBA) there will be some nerve damage. Nerves get torn, cut or separated causing a loss of sensation. There can be wide swaths of numb areas. It depends on what type of surgery you have as to how much nerve damage and loss of sensitivity there is.

There are three major types of incisions used in a breast augmentation:

Periareolar – This incision is the most concealed, but is associated with a higher likelihood of inability to successfully breast feed, as compared to the other incision sites. The incision is placed at the bottom half of the areolae. Consider that there will most likely be severe reduction in nipple sensation with this type of implant insertion.

Inframammary – This incision is less concealed than the periareolar and associated with less difficulty than the periareolar incision site when breast-feeding. This incision is placed in the underside crease of the breast. The reduction in nipple sensation probably won’t be as severe with this type of implant insertion. Consider that a big bag of water is being shoved up under the muscle or skin. There WILL be some reduction in breast sensation.

Axillary – This incision is less concealed than the periareolar and associated with less difficulty than the periareolar incision site when breast feeding. This incision is placed in the armpit. The loss of nipple sensation won’t be as severe as with the periareolear, but again, you’re having a big water bag shoved under the skin or muscle. There will be loss of sensation.

No matter what type of insertion you have for breast augmentation, there WILL be some nerve damage. Whether it is temporary or permanent is an individual experience.

4 Comments

Posted by Maria_Myrback on April 10, 2010 in boob job, breast, breast health, breast implants, breast lift, complications, conformity, cosmetic surgery, education, Healing, implants, Incisions, mastopexy, nerve damage, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, post-surgical, Recovery, recuperation, scar tissue, Scars, Surgery, Surgical complications, Uncategorized

Boobjob Versus Breast Augmentation

16 Feb

Dr. Grant Stevens speaks out on the subject:

An excellent breast augmentation can look natural, feel real and have a natural shape. Plastic surgeon Dr. Grant Stevens, Los Angeles, makes a distinction between successful breast surgery and the obvious “boob job” where it’s easy to tell a woman has had surgery

“Part of an excellent breast augmentations the fact that the breasts look as if they could actually occur in nature,” he explains. “There should be a question in the viewer’s mind as to whether or not these are real or are surgically created.”

A good breast augmentation has a natural fullness and gentle sloping off the chest wall. There should be natural cleavage, without webbing between the breasts and a certain amount of perkiness. Dr. Stevens lists five basic considerations that make for a desirable breast augmentation:

*which incision to use

*what type of implant to use

*placement of the implant

*texture of the implant

*size of the implant

Before having surgery, you should go over photographic examples of the breasts you want with your surgeon so that you both have a clear, visual understanding of the desired result. “My job is to make the breasts look like the photographs,” says Dr. Stevens.

There are four choices regarding where to make the incision for a breast implant: underneath the arm, around the nipple, or in the inframammary fold (where the breast meets the chest wall). The fourth is the umbilical incision, but is not as preferred as the others. There are advantages to each incision.

“l allow the patient to direct me as to which incision she wishes to have,” says Dr. Stevens. “We know that each incision has a certain amount of scarring, but our goal is to have the scar so minimal it’s inconspicuous.”

Sometimes there are ethnic factors(in terms of skin type and color) that might encourage one incision over another. Dr. Stevens refuses to recommend any incision per se but notes that: “Of all the breast augmentations I have performed on nurses, physicians or even my own employees, none have ever asked me to do either the inframammary fold or armpit approach. I find it highly significant that women who have been surrounded by the plastic surgery industry and have seen the most results, have never asked for an incision other than beneath the areola.”

The type of implant used has certain limitations in terms of availability. Currently, there is a moratorium on silicone implants; the silicone gel implant has been limited to women who fit into specific inclusion criteria. “lf there were no moratorium I would be putting in far more silicone gel implants than saline implants,” says Dr. Stevens. “The silicone gel implants, in general, feel more like a breast and look more like a breast. However, we can certainly adjust the saline implants and in most cases are able to give the woman a natural-looking breast.”

The next question is where to put the implant. It can be placed either on top of or behind the muscle. “l place implants behind the muscle so the implants are partially covered,” says Dr. Stevens. “The muscle allows a nice smooth take-off from the chest wall. lf put directly on top of the muscle they can look like a half-grapefruit or rounded balloon the chest.”

The fourth criterion in an excellent breast augmentation is the choice of specific implant. Should it be smooth, textured, low profile, high profile or anatomic? It’s important that each implant is individualized to achieve the size and shape the patient desires. According to Dr. Stevens, that individualization should dictate the decision.

“It’s my feeling that if the surgeon is wedded to only one type of implant then all the breast augmentations will look the same. This is not cookie-cutter surgery. Cookie-cutter breast augmentations are, in my opinion, ‘boob jobs’.”

Finally, although there is a size range from which to choose, the breast implant must be appropriately sized for the individual.

“When a breast augmentation is extremely large compared to the woman’s body, in my mind, it falls into the category of a ‘boob job’ because any one can certainly spot it,” notes Dr. Stevens. “If you take a little woman and you give her size double-D breasts, most people would agree that this is inappropriate. For a larger woman however, that size may be reasonable.Mostlf my patients want to be In the C to D range but certainly some women want to be a large D and some women only desire to be B-cup size.”

“Boob jobs” are often hard, round balls on a woman’s chest. Beautiful breast augmentations have a natural shape and size. Allowing natural movement, the implanted breasts slope gently off the chest and feel soft to the touch

Leave a comment

Posted by Maria_Myrback on February 16, 2010 in anchor breast lift, boob job, breast, breast implants, breast lift, breast size, breast volume, cosmetic surgery, implants, mastopexy, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Surgery, Uncategorized

Breast Necrosis Photos

13 Feb

Below you will find photos of what breast necrosis looks like. These are EXTREMELY graphic photos. This post is for MATURE VIEWERS ONLY!!

I am putting these photos up, not for shock value or to evoke pity. I am posting these images of breast necrosis so that when another woman has this happen to her, she will be able to look at the photos and evaluate for herself if she just has really bad bruising or if her tissue is necrotic.

I have said SO many times before that when I was going though this I did not have ANY pictorial references. I didn’t know what to look for. Now YOU, dear reader, do. If you are unfortunate enough to be reading this, searching for answers, please contact me at boobcast (at) gmail.com if you have ANY questions at all.

During the period you see below, I felt so very alone because I couldn’t find anything to compare myself to. I was also sheltering my husband and my family from what was going on. So I WAS alone. YOU don’t have to be.

The first photo (below) is approximately a week after surgery. Most of what you see is bruising. However the black spots are necrotic tissue.

The next photo you will see is closer shot. In this second photo you can see the difference between the bruising and the necrotic tissue. Here you can see the difference in the texture of the skin where it has really started to die.

This next photo is blurry and I’ll ask your forgiveness for that. You can see where a hole has opened up in the dead tissue.

There is a process called debriding where dead tissue is cut away. It doesn’t hurt because the tissue has died and has no nerves. It’s just rather horrifying knowing that part of your body has died and is being cut away. They don’t put you to sleep or anything. They just cut it off with surgical scissors. The completely black area used to be my nipple. That is was totally necrotic tissue looks like.

The yellow tissue is, as you may have already suspected, breast fat.

A photo of my other necrotic nipple and areolae:

Finally, a VERY graphic closeup of one of my breasts after the debriding:

99 Comments

Posted by Maria_Myrback on February 13, 2010 in breast lift, breast necrosis, breast necrosis photos, breast necrosis pics, complications, cosmetic surgery, debreiding, debridement, implants, necrosis, Nipples, plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery Disaster, Surgical complications, Uncategorized

Boobjob Verus Breast Augmentation

13 Feb

Dr. Grant Stevens speaks out on the subject:

n excellent breast augmentation can look natural, feel real and have a natural shape. Plastic surgeon Dr. Grant Stevens, Los Angeles, makes a distinction between successful breast surgery and the obvious “boob job” where it’s easy to tell a woman has had surgery

which incision to use
what type of implant to use
placement of the implant
texture of the implant
size of the implant

Sometimes there are ethnic factors(in terms of skin type and color) that might encourage one incision over another. Dr. Stevens refuses to recommend any incision per se but notes that: “Of all the breast augmentations I have performed on nurses, physicians or even my own employees, none have ever asked me to do either the inframammary fold or armpit approach. I find it highly significant that women who have been surrounded by the plastic surgery industry and have seen the most results, have never asked for an incision other than beneath the areola.”

Finally, although there is a size range from which to choose, the breast implant must be appropriately sized for the individual.

1 Comment

Posted by Maria_Myrback on February 13, 2010 in anchor breast lift, boob job, breast, breast implants, breast lift, breast size, breast volume, cosmetic surgery, implants, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Surgery

Talking Is Harder Than Writing

12 Feb

I’ve been writing BoobCast for so long, one would think that losing my breasts to necrosis would have gotten somewhat easier to talk about. I would have liked to believe that writing about it makes it easier to deal with at all.

It hasn’t.

Yesterday I hung out with someone I haven’t seen in about a year and a half. After we talked about the initial reason she contacted me again, she asked me what had been going on with me since last we saw each other. So I told her. Not in vivid detail mind you but enough so that I was kind of choking up.

What surprised me even more is how much anger I still have towards the man I feel is responsible for all of this. I’m still legally constrained from mentioning his name or the name of his practice. That doesn’t keep me from hoping that some day someone will break his hands with a sledgehammer so he can’t put some other poor woman through this.

Almost 2 and a half years and I’m still angry beyond belief. I think what made me the most angry has always been his manner. There was The Valium Incident, generally replying “I don’t know” when asked what was going on and insulting my practice as an herbalist by calling it voodoo even though, as part of prep for the surgery I was given herbal supplements to take. Add to that, telling me to stop screaming as he sewed cadaver skin onto my rotting breasts to try to act as some kind of bandage. The screaming happened because he was sewing it on to a spot that hadn’t been numbed. Of course I left out those details. I can write about them but, as I type, I’m choking back tears.

When does this get easier??

It HAS to one of these days or I’m never going to be able to talk about this on stage. I still have hopes of turning BoobCast into a Vagina Monologues style stage show.

Do any of you know how to get speaking gigs?

For new readers, please read my earliest post in the Archives.

3 Comments

Posted by Maria_Myrback on February 12, 2010 in anchor breast lift, boob job, breast, breast implants, breast lift, cadaver skin, complications, cosmetic surgery, emotional healing, emotional scars, implants, Medical, necrosis, negligence, plastic surgeon, plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery Disaster, Surgical complications, Uncategorized

Search This Site
Search
Categories
Archives
Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,132 other followers
Networked Blogs

Follow this blog
Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,132 other followers

Category Archives: breast lift

Search This Site

Categories

Archives

Email Subscription

Networked Blogs

Follow Blog via Email

Follow “Boobcast”