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Vice Blog

TORONTO - A STROLL DOWN MAMMARY LANE


In Manitoba the province will pay for breast reductions if you can prove that you need it done for medical reasons. I was a double D, or maybe even an E, and my back didn't hurt. But frankly, I was pissed about the way my shirts pulled at the buttons and made those lines that indicate that your tits are trying to pull your shirt apart from the inside. When I wore my Slash t-shirt his face stretched out like he had giant eye tumors. This had to stop.

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My cleavage made me feel like a cougar, and smaller breasts had always just been more appealing to me. After three visits to the doctor I convinced him I needed the surgery. Then I started talking about it a lot, to everyone. A male friend tried to talk me out of it. "What a waste," he said. For the month leading up to the surgery he would get some good long stares in whenever we hung out. "Your tits look fucking sweet in that sweater," he told me. (I think he was trying to say that I looked pretty.) I was a little surprised by my ex-boyfriend's reaction. He tried to convince me that surgery was risky, that men are attracted to all different sizes and I shouldn't worry about it. He knew my breasts better than anyone else, so maybe it felt a little strange to him that in a month half of them would wind up in the organic waste bin at St. Boniface hospital.

While I was on the gurney waiting to be wheeled into the operating room, a nurse asked me what size I was going to be. I thought we had already settled it during my consultation, but I ordered up an extra-small C again, just in case.

After three hours I woke up fried on morphine with a huge bandage wrapped around my torso.  Drainage tubes extended from under my chest, filling small bags with thick, translucent fluid. The medical word for that stuff is "tit juice."

I left the hospital the next morning with tons of codeine and maintenance instructions. After eight days I went back to the doctor to take the gauze off and I nearly passed out. This photo was taken that day. My mangled tits were pointy and full of blood. The glue from the bandages had left a black sticky goo all over my chest and torso. There was stitching around my nipples. Stitching! They took my fucking nipples off! And they looked so weird, the shape. This pic was taken that day. I was pretty freaked out; the lines around my nips looked like smudged lipstick. They had  "puckered" the doctor said, "…but they're staring straight ahead, so that's good."

EMILY SMYTHE