My BR W Lift Was Part of my "Granny Takeover" - Dallas, TX

I'll turn 65 at the end of November and have lived with large breasts all my life. But over the last 3-4 years things began changing. I grew from a 36 DD-DDD to a 38G. I gained 6 lbs from 182 to 188 on my 5'6" frame. I got married after being divorced 23 years. And, the worst thing, I slowly lost my ability to comfortably hold a pen and write! I had been enjoying journaling for years while I got over my divorce and dated badly, working through learning about myself and the bad choices I made in men.

So how I finally moved to act...my new hubby isn't a breast man, he prefers legs. Well, I thought, he chose me first so that's his problem. When we married, he asked me to give up my day jobs (that I did to support my acting career) which left me with more time. So I started working on a dream project of mine - a talk show for senior women like myself. In the process of developing and producing the show, my inability to hold a pen and write really became problematic. Couple that with increasing mysterious neck pain that radiated across my shoulders and down my spine, I was beginning to think that my 60s were not going to be very much fun even though I was now an empty nester and a newly-wed!!! Geez, I thought. Is God playing tricks on us as we age???

So internet research became my friend. I really got into an obsessive habit of researching everything: biz holiday gifts, topics for my show, experts to weigh in on the topics for my show, interests and trends among mature women, why mature women become invisible in our society, beauty trends among senior women which led me to PS trends which were the usual eye lift, neck tightening, spot removal, etc. But for younger women there was something called a "mommy makeover". Very interesting!!! I dove into understanding that, found Real Self and it's Mommy Makeover section, and that started my personal wheels turning.

I got my show on the air, did a complete 16 show season. But now my Internet research expanded to this whole PS industry, which I found to be very interesting. Long story short, I suffered through the aforementioned neck, shoulder and spine pain while I made a series of appts with my internist, a hand specialist, and a neurologist (their tests really hurt!!!). No one could figure out why I couldn't hold a pen and write. At the same time I learned about the neck and back pain from large breasted women here on RS and that a BR was the solution they elected. Interesting. But my focus all along had really been on my tummy, for decades. It was my melting-down-the-front-of-me tummy, my "kangaroo pouch" that was the bane of my existence, not my large breasts, which I, frankly, had always been proud of. My new hubby noticed how men gave my cleavage a 2nd look. Hehehe.

So I made a series of consultation appts with PS....about my tummy. During one, Dr. Godat examined my tummy/pannus, told me what he could do to make it....OMGosh...FLAT again, and offhandedly suggested I might even consider breast work later on, to make them perky (PERKY!!!?), and he'd bet I could some day wear a bikini. (Whuuuuttt!!!). Aloud, I quipped "Perky? I don't care about perky. I'm 64. I'd just like to get rid of the neck and back pain.". Dr. Godat quickly picked up on that, asked me a series of questions about my breast and pain history, then suggested I consider addressing both issues, because he was pretty sure my insurance would cover a BR (geez, they're THAT big??) surgery and hospitalization, so all I'd have to pay for is the TT.

WELL. WELL. Then I told him about my inability to write. He brought up the possible nerve damage in my right arm due to a possible pinched nerve in my shoulder from heavy breasts. My internist confirmed this theory.

I thought about it all a couple of weeks. Did more Internet research. Then made a decision.

So my TT journey is posted in the Mommy Makeover Section of this website. And I'll post my BR journey here. I soooo don't relate to the mommy makeover thing because of reasons I explain in that section. So I guess I have to post in both these sections. I wrote RS administration about creating an area for more mature women like me who have combined procedures but don't want to call it a mommy makeover. I call it a "granny takeover" because I'm taking back my body from the ravages of 5 pregnancies, 4 births, 1 c-section, 1 hysterectomy, twenty-five plus years ago!!! Now I'm an empty nester, newly married to a man who loves to garden and travel the world, like me, I take 2 high blood pressure pills, a cholesterol pill, I don't have the skin tone of a younger woman and recovery may take a bit longer even though I don't smoke. So I consider myself, as a more mature plastic surgeon patient, to be ...."special".

The procedure cost includes hospital and PS charges for all the procedures.

I have these deep grooves in my shoulders from bra straps holding dense heavy breasts. On a recent 4 hr flight from Alaska I wore plastic BR strap shields that contain the straps and disperse the weight on my shoulders. That evening when I removed them I saw blisters that began to itch. Over the next few days they dried, turned dark then my skin peeled. What was left were dark scars which are slowly fading.