a self portrait called botched

[CW fatphobia & calorie mention]

I got top surgery right before the pandemic started.

Sometimes I hate that surgeon for what he did to me. At the post op appointment, when I expressed that the cleavage I hated so much wasn't even gone - he poked my bare stomach and said 'lose that, and it'll fix your chest too'

(I thought, shouldn't a surgeon understand? that even when I was eating 400 calories a day, breast tissue never just disappeared. Not for me anyways.)

So yeah, I hate him sometimes.

But he gave me four years. Four summers of feeling the breeze on my chest. Four winters of soft hoodies hanging flat.

But also four summers of hateful stares when I'm shirtless at the beach or when I dare to wear a tank top that shows my dog ears. But those stares never fail to be balanced out by the kids who look at me in wonderment as if they're thinking "wait, you can do that?"

All goes well, I'll be getting dog-ear surgery and lipo on December 2nd. It feels too good to be true, and I'm proud to say that I'll be ok if it isn't. I love my chest just the way it is.