![]() ![]() My faith has taught me that it often takes tough experiences to put things in perspective. I’m actually embarrassed that I invested so much anxiety into them, to begin with. In fact, I think they’re kind of cute, squiggly stretch marks included. And my boobs sag just the same despite being manipulated into the shape of a pancake multiple times a miracle if I ever saw one. I walk around my apartment naked because that’s the best part of living alone. I can still run for miles on the treadmill. I was literally amazed at how my body had looked and eventually felt after so much physical and emotional anguish. Had I actually been diagnosed, I’m not sure how I would’ve managed and now, I have another level of admiration for women who endure breast cancer period.Īfter months of squishing, flattening, pricking, prodding and waiting, I’m not going to lie-I still wanted a breast lift, but not as desperately as before. By the fall, I had dropped almost 25 pounds from medication and the added stress of friends and family saying “you’re fine” or “this happened to my friend and she was fine.” I isolated because I was sick of people pretending the risk wasn’t there instead of validating my feelings. And I did all of this while attempting to be present at work and at home. I also spent well over $1,000 to find out I didn’t have a tumor in my breast (and TBH, I’m still paying some of it off) and discovered firsthand what it means to be a Black woman and have your pain overlooked. I won’t get into the intricacies of the broken healthcare system: how no one took me seriously because of my age (“You’re only 30? No way you have breast cancer!”) despite having family history, how a technician didn’t bat an eyelash as I cried and asked her to note the dimple in my results, how another technician tried to send me home despite the fact that my doctor requested a 3-D mammogram and ultrasound because of dense breast tissue, how I spent an entire day going from hospital to hospital for a timely appointment because my doctor miswrote a referral twice that inevitably prevented me from being seen every time I rescheduled how a small part of me will always be scared that the doctors missed something because of how I was treated every step of the way. Ultimately, it would be another three months before I found out I was benign and *knocks on wood* in the clear, thanks to a gynecologist who is actually invested in my health and sensitive to my concerns. Had I not been so vigilant, who knows how much longer I would’ve carried the weight of a scare. After hours of phone calls, I still had to wait one month for an ultrasound and mammogram, during which I tried to keep myself from going down a Google rabbit hole and slipping into manic and depressive episodes (one of the reasons I need therapy). ![]() Now I had to get to a doctor, like, yesterday. At this point, my doctor grabbed my finger, laid it on top and pushed down on the hard, crooked mass I was feeling for the first time because, well, I hated my boobs and didn’t normally dig into them. I reminded her that my last doctor said I have lumpy breasts, which my mother confirmed and reassured me was normal. “I feel a lump at 9 o’clock,” said my doctor, as I totally forgot why I went there in the first place. It wasn’t for a breast exam-I was there for a prescription refill-but because I was due for one and had the time, I figured why not? The seemingly standard appointment suddenly got way more dramatic than anticipated. In fact, I was so excited that I nearly forgot about a doctor’s appointment I had a few days later. My only complaint was that I couldn’t do it right then and there. There would be a needle involved and some discomfort, but with zero downtime and results in a matter of weeks. I sat on a fancy table, talked to a savvy doctor and scheduled my appointment for a couple weeks later. This is how I ended up in an Upper East Side medical spa last April to get the go-ahead for a Vampire Breast Lift, a non-invasive procedure that would make my dream of perkier breasts a reality.
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