We have
reached the point where I become a human arts-and-crafts project. Squeamish
persons, read no further.
I went to see my plastic surgeon
this morning to plan the next round of surgery, in which they install a nipple
in my right boob. Right now that naughty boob is roughly the same size and
shape and texture as the other one, only it is blank: no nipple or areola or anything on the front.
So the plan is as follows: they do a big
old skin graft. They take a section of
skin from my left armpit, where my smart surgeon cunningly left some extra the
last time she was cutting and pasting in there. And they take that bit and fold
it into an origami nipple. And then they applique it onto the blank boob. And
my boobs and I live happily ever after.
The doctor says in all probability,
the new nipple will be slightly smaller than the old one. It’s hard to get it
exact.
I can live with that.
It’s outpatient surgery, down at
Sibley Hospital down in DC again. It will take about an hour, and they know
enough by now to bring me coffee the minute I get to the recovery room.
It both amazes me and creeps me out
that we can do this sort of thing, with my own living skin, as if it were nice
paper from the scrapbooking aisle at Michael’s.
There aren't all that many decisions to make. My surgeon did ask me if I would
like to be awake while they do the skin graft. I just looked at her.
Hell, no! Good Lord, what sort of a question is that? Why
would I want to be awake for this business? So I can watch? Unless they want me
to be really, excessively drunk or something instead? No, thank you! Really, that struck me as a
silly question. Ugh. Do I look like a
masochist?
This is all going to happen in
January. And then another three months before they tattoo the areola on there and
this spate of fixer-upper work is done. Apparently I have to be awake for that tattoo
part. It doesn’t warrant general anesthesia, or any anesthesia, really. Their
thinking is, most of the nerves in there are mostly disconnected anyway.
(What’s several dozen needlesticks
in the nipple, anyway? Aren’t you a badass Montana girl?)
The assistant sort of laughed and
said I could have a margarita first. Yeah, right, a margarita… Silly assistant!
My surgeon recommends the Rockville
tattoo artist, Tina Marie. But I have friends who speak highly of Vinnie from
Baltimore. I wonder which of them is more likely to turn a blind eye to a hip
flask of Scotch?
