Lopsided boobies -- the stuff nobody wants to discuss

The discussion about bra colors (what color bra are you wearing?) caused me to really look at a sensitive issue that I wasn't comfortable dealing with directly. But... I'm gonna do it anyway because somebody has to bring it up and make it plain. Lopsided boobies are the stuff that nobody wants to discuss.

My boobies are lopsided.


Yes. I'm serious. My precious girls are lopsided.  And sometimes it makes me giggle. But most of the time I am slightly angry/annoyed/frustrated about it. I mean, seriously... why isn't this part of normal conversation? Does anyone understand what this feels like?

Currently, I am still recuperating from my breast reconstruction surgery -- my body still aches, walking is still difficult, standing is hard and I am sooo frustrated. I am determined to heal completely and to move forward. The next step is to have my natural breast (the one unaffected by breast cancer) to be reduced so that it matches the newly constructed breast that replaced the one that cancer stole from me. But the bottom line is that I want my life back. So all this slow, awkward inching towards healing crap just has to go. I need my sexy back... not now, but RIGHT NOW.

Hard to feel sexy and lopsided at the same time

I am a single woman now (thanks to a boyfriend who decided that this was too much to deal with). And I would like to find a new boyfriend (or boy toy... you know, whatever is clever) to hang out with, spend time with and maybe fall in love again.  Also important thought... is the fact that I'd like to re-engage in ... um, "sexual relations" too. I miss it. Like a fat kid misses cake.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to give an air of confidence and security to new people (new men especially) when the parts of you that most men are attracted to initially are not even remotely close to symmetrical? I'm talking the difference between an orange and a cantaloupe. Let me take you back to the 10 months after my mastectomy but before my reconstruction.

Ten months! That is almost an entire year. People want you to pretend that all is well now that the cancer is gone... but you're walking around with the equivalent of a medical shoulder pad on your chest pretending to be a breast. Do you even begin to understand how hard it was for me to move around in the world, sore and weak and tired from chemotherapy and a mastectomy... with just one breast? Breast prostheses don't even com as large as my natural breasts. I can't even tell you how much time I spent in my bedroom trying to stuff my bras just right so that my chest looked sort of balanced.

None of this is easy.

I feel disfigured. I feel ugly. I hurt physically and emotionally at the notion that I had to allow people to disfigure my beautiful body just to save my life. And on top of that... I am in my sexual prime... and I have no man, no boyfriend and no ability to even muster up the courage to meet someone new and attempt to connect again. Sex? What is that? When will I ever feel sexy again?

Sex makes me happy and I'm not getting any.  

Yet another thing that breast cancer treatment has taken from me (insert sad face here).

Back to the point. In all of the discussions that I've had over the past 16 months about losing this, and regaining that, the doctors didn't really mention how to deal with the in-between time between surgeries/procedures. I knew that when I chose not to have my second breast removed when I had my mastectomy that it would mean that I would look different for awhile. But it never occurred to me just how different and how long I would be in this state of limbo.

Each surgery requires many weeks (nearly 2 months) of recuperation time. Time where you are basically just sitting still waiting for healing to take place. That's fine because healing fully is the goal... but how do I adjust to how I look? How do I get comfortable with how I feel?

I don't like being lopsided. 

I guess it sounds temperamental and perhaps bratty to complain about being lopsided considering the cancer that nearly took my life. But guess what? I'm vain. Sorry to offend anyone but really... I'm vain. Even when I was a kid that other kids called ugly... I really thought I was cute. And when I grew out of that ugly-duckling stage (wasn't nothing wrong with their eyes, I did look a little crazy sometimes)... I really thought I was cute. Then I was sexy. And finally, I was moving into sultry. Okay... maybe only in my head but cute stops being applicable when you're 40 or so.

Bottom line is that my appearance mattered to me. I like looking good. Dammit. Don't you?

So... I'm sitting here lopsided and angry because before breast cancer and mastectomies, feeling sexy was hard. Finding beautiful and sexy lingerie that worked for me was difficult. I was a hard size to find and now that I'm only partially that difficult size I have to wonder why didn't anybody tell me how awkward all of this would feel?

[Plain talk:  One breast is a D cup. The other breast is an H cup. So when I say that I feel crazy and lopsided... I mean that I am feeling very crazy and I'm super-lopsided.]

My mother -- bless her heart -- did try to convince me to remove both of my breasts. She felt that being proactive and removing any possibility of breast cancer coming back was the best move. I thought it was crazy since there was nothing wrong with my other breast. I am a young woman who has never had a baby. I still use my breasts sexually and I still miss the woman I was before all of "this" started.  I just needed to keep a part of myself intact and whole and the way it was before cancer. I think that was a good decision. However, there are parts to these changes that I really had not considered.

Girl in silver bikini top with lopsided breastsThe way that my reconstructed breast feels is odd. I am guessing that it will take some time before it feels totally like me... assuming that it ever does. I feel like someone just put this thing on my body but it doesn't completely feel like "me" yet. But the hardest part is... breast cancer or not, I'm still a girl. I still want to look sexy, in and out of my clothes. I still want to know that the man I'm with can look at me and be excited at the sight of my body. Right now, that's not what I'm feeling when I look down. And it is bothering me. 

I'm just so frustrated. I don't feel like myself...


Most women are uneven. We're not built perfectly symmetrical. Usually the difference is so negligible that women don't notice at all. But there are women who naturally have significant differences in their breast sizes. I can only assume that their sexual partners either don't care or don't notice and for them, life just goes on. I'm clear that I'm not dealing with something that a lot of women don't deal with every day. But that breast cancer twist on it that makes it all just that much more ... ugh.

It is all just taking so long. I want my life back.


I was supposed to be healed and back to my life by now. I was on my way... until I fell just before Christmas. That fall seems to have caused more problems than I wanted to admit. The delay in my healing has made me (once again) revisit having more surgery to make myself look normal again. Normal isn't the right word... but you know what I mean. I always thought that those women who went through multiple plastic surgery procedures had issues. Mental problems where they couldn't see their body in the right way -- body dysmorphia. I always felt a little sad for them. So, now that I am considering more surgery (and struggling with the notion) I am wondering where I fall on the spectrum of body dysmorphia.

Here's the real deal. I want to go to the beach this summer (as usual) and I had hoped to be able to sport a sexy bathing suit and play with some cute boys (okay... one cute one in particular, but you know... I'm single, I like to look around). While I know that my attractiveness, my sexiness is between my ears and not on my chest... I also know that a woman's body is a true thing of beauty. And I want that beauty back too.

More surgery, more recuperation, more pain OR using prosthetics and other "tricks" for the rest of my life?

Geez... what choices.

Breast reconstruction after mastectomy



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