It's been two years since my double mastectomy without reconstruction and I have embraced my body. When I first knew I was getting rid of them I was nervous. I was small to begin with, but I did have those moments of what would people think? Would they look at me differently?
I remained positive as I did throughout the whole cancer journey. I mean come on I got a new wardrobe out of it! But in all seriousness and joking aside did I really want that new wardrobe? Of course not. I had to wait a few weeks -- more like a month or two after surgery for the swelling to go down and to heal. And not having to wear a bra was actually wonderful! I didn't want anything extra to wear anyway because I was healing. I wore what I had to wear, the camisole after surgery to help with swelling, t-shirts while going through chemo because of course when you are sick you don't want to wear much anyway, and undershirts while I went through radiation.
Since insurance covered it I did end up getting prosthetics which I will wear occasionally and I'll get double takes from my daughters. I also have knitted knockers which are breast forms knitted by wonderful ladies who provide them free to women who have had mastectomies.
I know for me after wearing the prosthetics for several hours I can't wait to come home and take them off. It's so freeing! I think my daughters enjoy the knockers more because they play with them and pretend they have breasts. Just what I am looking forward too when they start to hit puberty! Another thing my mom and I laugh about one night when my girls were sleeping at my parents, my youngest saw my mom getting undressed for bed and she said Bubbie (yiddish for Grandma) you need to take your boobs off! My oldest laughed and said those are real! Because I have been so open with my daughters and walk around the house naked they are used to me not having breasts. However, I am glad they are able to see other women and know we are all different.
Today I don't care what people think or if they look at my chest and think she has no breasts or she is really small.
So what do I wear? I can still wear some clothes which I had before. I used to hate racerback shirts or off the shoulder because I couldn't find the right bra and now I don't have to worry anymore. It's fun to try new things! I have been using Stitch Fix (if you would like to try them click on the link and you can try them out. They offer this with all their customers to send our referral links and they change it every so often). When I joined I let them know I was having a dmx and staying flat. They have been sending out great outfits - clothes with stripes, ruffles and more that I would not have tried before.
I'm on a FB site called Fabulously Flat (Unreconstructed Breast Cancer Survivors) where I have met some amazing ladies. Jaimie reached out to me when I first joined this site and after her diagnosis in 2018 she also ending up doing a dmx and staying flat. She has her own blog but even more so she has created clothes for us flatties! Here are some examples as well as her website. YDY Sweets
Besides shopping online I also went to Macy's and met with their personal shopper and it was fun to let someone help me find clothes. I got some great shirts and a few dresses. So now that I have that under my belt I know what to look for. I have fun with it, I get to dress my outfits up with accessories and with my short hair those long dangly earrings really stand out!
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