Birdwoman, (Or, the Unexpected Virtue of Returning to a Small Chest). Edgewood, KY

I've had saline implants for 20 years. Over the muscle, first set in 1995, second set in 2005. With the second augmentation I had a mastopexy and an abdominoplasty. I began with A cup breasts that had big ol areolas, man. Like crazy eyes starting at you from the bathroom mirror through shower steam. I hated that I had my mom's side of the family areolas and my dad's side flat chest. Though I was okay, mostly, with the size, I really disliked those niblets. Then, I had a baby and breast fed. Good grief. My Marty Feldman eye areolas looked okay while the milk jugs were full, but afterwards, wowza. .. not pretty. I began to work out, hitting those chest machines hard and trying to tone up the tatas. Life went on, the way it does. I divorced and remarried, and felt more and more like I should give my new man fresh tatas. So, a few years into our marriage I did it. I got D cups, and it was a hoot for while! Though, always a medium to slender body, I got a little thicker. I developed allergies I never had, and started shots. I began to have trouble swallowing, and got some serious tummy issues. We had moved into an California arts and crafts bungalow that we were rehabbing while we lived there, so I figured it was 1924 dust, and the stress of living in 3 rooms at a time while we did work on the other 6. Fast forward to 2005, and you'll find Birdwoman with a mess in her chest. Fat and with the implants pointing in opposite directions, I decided to have revision surgery and a tummy tuck. I came out of that massively long and painful surgery, beautifully executed by Dr. Kuy, with DD breasts, silver dollar nipples (areolas), and a flat stomach I NEVER could've gotten froma lifetime of the ab workout I'd always done. I was tickled! I got a post surgical MRSA infection in my abdominoplasty drain incision that nearly killed me. I was sick for 2 years, and remain effected by the mrsa to this day. It will always be colonized in my nostrils. But, my body looked better than it had in years. My right breast came over mid line a little too much, but I didn't have Marty Feldman eyes on my chest anymore, and finally liked the way i looked naked. That's a feat for any woman. We're socialized to incorporate self loathing into our body image, and that's gotta stop. I know, I know, I had the boobs, I can talk, right? But, I'm a clear voice calling out from a thick forest, and I want you to hear me. Especially wheni say this: THE SECOND SET OF IMPLANTS EVENTUALLY STARTED TO LOOK WONKY, TOO! They almost always do, because the body is trying so hard to understand the foreign objects we cut our cheats open and stuck in. It makes scar. Scar will harden and calcify and shorten. And it takes those implants with it for the ride. In the last2 years I've had my thyroid stop working (hypothyroid), started getting massive neurological events called "complicated migraine", developed pvcs and pacs so bad I'm on beta blockers, had functional sinus surgery becausei KEPT sinus infections, have gotten pneumonia 3 times, and by the time I stumbled into ER in fall of 2013, where they ended up diagnosing all these things during my week admitted, I had left side numbness and aphasia. I NEVER thought it could be my implants. I stated to research, trying trying trying to get healthy again, and found resources and studies that suggest a correlation between implants and a myriad of illnesses, even some deaths. I decided, after much reading, weeks and weeks, that if there was a 1% chance it is these implants, I'm getting them explanted. I have degenerative disk disease pretty bad in my entire spine (had lower lumbar surgery in 92) from being in 3 car accidents (distracted people liked to rear end me), and I thought, hell, maybe my neck and shoulders won't hurt as often if the weight is gone! And so it began. I am a yoga teacher and ballet dancer who'd been doing these activities with huge breasts. It isn't easy. They mitigate balance, and make it almost impossible to master inversions. I have back fat. I didn't use to, but the breasts make it happen. They don't tell you that up front. They don't tell you that 95% of us women who implant wind up NOT LIKING THE WAY WE LOOK NAKED, BECAUSE OUR [RS bleep] LOOK WONKY! We look great in clothes, most of the time, but bathing suits and naked becomes even more challenging than when we were flat chested. All this being said, I am explant woman, now! April 9th of 2015, unless they get a cancellation and I can get in sooner. I've watched MONSTERS INSIDE ME, VAMPIRE PARASITES, and learned that aspergillis mold, like in the bath tub, can be growing inside your implant. Slowing leaking or the valve and into our bodies. I've learned that, and so much more. Do I believe, like one case i saw, that my implants are BLACK inside? No. But, I'm suitably concerned. And more important than that is I'm ready to go back to my natural state. The president of the Itty bitty [RS bleep] committee who could wear any clothes, some even braless! The woman who could buy a bra without a summit meeting. The sparrow chested girl who didn't know how lovely she was until 20 years of conditioning and self loathing wore off. The BIRDWOMAN, that's me, now. I want to be sleek again, so I can bank on sweet breezes and flutter through hot winds anytime I desire. I want to land on your window sill and sing to you that songi needed to hear so long ago: you are perfect. You are priceless. You need be nothing more because you're exquisite as you stand, scrutinizing yourself in a steamed up bathroom mirror, wishing you looked like that lady on tv. Go. Put away those thoughts of a nearly good enough you. Take it from me, there's no short cut to loving yourself. There is breast implant surgery and the first they'll of it and then the capsule contracts or the implant moves or the flesh necrotizes, and it's back to looking into the bathroom mirror wishing, and coming to greet your lover with the lights off. I'm scarred for you and gladly, if it helped. I'll be a sacrifice if only to prevent more sorrow. I hope my surgery gives me back my sparrow. I have missed her! You? You, Go. Be a bird. Any bird you choose. Any bird you choose.

I was 14 when my parents separated, and in the divorce they both fought for my 8 year old brother. Neither wanted me. It was difficult to know who I was after that. If i am a child whose parents don't want me, then who will ever love me?
It was a tough year.

Now, though, since then, I've been blessed by the universe with love so big it makes me cry with full joy.
I've done therapy, and know that their immaturity, and mishandling of their parental responsibilities, had nothing to do with me. I've also been a mom and grandmother, and know that love doesn't do what they did. I couldn't even conceptualize doing to my daughter, or grandchildren, the horrible thing they did to my little heart.

They were selfish people who did love me, but not as much as they loved themselves. And there's nothing to do about that now. Daddy was murdered in a hotel room in 1984, and mom is just mom, too old or to stubborn to be frank and put me out of my misery with an explanation. I couldn't force her to love me. And now, this time lay year, she had a stroke, and can't speak coherent sentences. She's like a child, and all I can do is love her, forgive her, care for her.

But I'd I stopped needing an explanation years ago. Just gave that need a pitch and said fu#k it, you were useless and heavy, and never fit in the overhead compartment when I fly.
But it was a conscious deciding.
And then,oh, then!, I was free to give that room where NEED for that explanation had lived, (rent controlled and always cooking curry dishes) a remodel.
A renovate.
Paint, floor, great artwork on the walls, a writing table, à yoga área, and a ballet barre, and a speed bag. Things that gave me health and strength.
It's absolutely Beautiful in there, now.
I'd introduce you to my interior designer, but you already have the best one.
She's going to decorate your room with Polaroid collages, and places to breathe; with spaces where you can sit in pure knowledge that, perhaps, being a parent yourself, but certainly being an adult member of the human race, you know that we sometimes say stupid,hurtful [RS bleep] in front of our kids.
In front of each other.
Sometimes, we don't say anything at all. And that can cripple a person for life, if you let it.
I simply don't tolerate that kind of behavior anymore from people who claim to "love." Not even myself.

Namaste,
Birdwoman

Well, it's actually tatas, but it didn't work to give you the earwig awesomeness that is "She's Got Betty Davis Eyes."

I just had to give a visual for bio reference. ;)