Nip/Tuck

Last week I found myself sitting neatly on the pink pleather covered examination table, which was really more of an elevated chair, trying to figure out how best to cover my breasts for my introduction to the young and talented Dr.X, a plastic surgeon on Madison Ave. I had seen him once before, at a support group for bariatric patients, and he came highly recommended from my own surgeon.

Being of the rather well-endowed set for as long as I can remember (I'm pretty sure I had fantasies of breast reduction in junior high when most of my classmates didn't need a bra and I was inventing more and more creative ways of covering my full B's up), I had imagined how this meeting might go for years. However, no strings of imagination can quite prepare you for a man who is a stranger to you lifting and pinching your breasts in an orchestrated aria of technicality to show you how they will look when he's done with them; particularly when that man is very attractive, quite probably your age or younger, and looks more like he's 18. Hell, Dr.X is a man I might have dated in college, or even late-high school. (yes, he looks that young) I'm doing my best to avoid Doogie Howser references, but it would be appropriate under the circumstances. Since I'm sure Dr.X is a far cry from 18, prides himself on his medical accomplishments which took years to fulfill and would resent any and all Doogie references, I won't use his real name here.

Somehow I managed to maintain composure and decorum whilst Dr. X drew a large W on my left breast and lifted and tugged and the areas that will eventually need more attention than my personal trainer can provide. I asked all the questions I could think of; even throwing in questions I already knew the answers to just to keep silence from filling the room. Silence is a bad thing when you're standing half naked in a frosty room wishing to god you had worn the pretty bra today instead of the beige one that looks like it's for Grandma.

I'm pretty damn anal about medical research (if you couldn't already tell that), and even self-diagnosis. Much to most of my doctor's chagrine, I almost always know what I have and/or need before I even enter a doctor's office. The only things that eluded me as far as Dr.X were the specific prices, and his judgment about whether I should go for the tummy and breasts at once or have my doses of excrutiating pain separately. I had seen his work at the support group and was impressed; moreso than the dozens and dozens of other plastics guys and gals I had peered at online over the last several months. It seems shopping for a plastic surgeon is like shopping for produce. Those are too square, or oblong etc... Dr.X, along with his high recommendation had pictures to back up his reputation.

Since that day, and several peanut gallery chimings later about the overall pain of the procedures I plan on having, the relative positives and negative of having "gigantic hoohaa's", and thoughts of scarring, not to mention thousands and thousands of dollars to consider, I am still at somewhat of a loss as to exactly what I will get and when I will do it.

It will surprise no one to hear that my boyfriend enjoys my double D's so much that he's rooting for implants, if anything is done at all; that my girlfriends of comparably modest endowments would like me to save some of the natural tissue for their own surgeries, and that those friends opposed to the nip/tuck genre are telling me to avoid the "butcher" altogether.

Thankfully, in some ways at least, I'm not planning on having anything done until towards the end of the calendar year. Perhaps by then I'll have my mind made up.