My Karma Through the Ages: Frankenboob

*No boobs were harmed in the writing of this blog.  None of the boobs that may or may not be shown here are actually mine.  This blog may or may not be appropriate for work.

 

I've been chronicling my interactions with Karma Through The Ages for long enough that if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you probably get that I am now and always have been (and always will be) Karma's Bitch.  

Nothing surprises me anymore.

Right??  

Unfortunately, I hadn't quite figured that out 5 years ago when I decided to take my boobs in for a pick-me-up.  (There had been signs, obviously, that Karma had it in for me, but at that point I was still under the impression that Karma had mistaken me for someone else and would figure it out sooner rather than later.  I've believed for some time now that once, when I was like 3, when the universe wasn't looking, my older sister did something horrible and blamed it on me.  Because that's totally something she would have done. Thanks, ANDREA.  This is all your fault.)

Evil Sister Andrea.  Responsible for my Karma since 1965.

 

Anyway, Boob Surgery:  Taking a couple of sow's ears and turning them into silk purses.

My surgery went well, even though it took 9 hours.  Yes, nine (9).  Nine hours.  The doctor had to keep bringing me out of anesthesia because my blood pressure was dropping and then racing back up to abnormal heights, then dropping again to points previously unknown. They finally decided to not put me alllll the way under, because my blood pressure and my heart rate were too unstable.  So I had the uncomfortable feeling of being sliced, diced, drawn and quartered.  

This actually happened at one point:

Me:  *mumbling through a drug-induced haze*  "I can feel you cutting me..."

Dr:  "No you can't... You won't remember any of this when you come out of it."

Dear Boob Doctor,

I call bull shit.

Love,

Dani

After a few days of relying heavily on my pain pump (truly the best invention ever made, like, EVER) I was eagerly anticipating getting out of the disgusting compression garment and show-casing the girls in something lacy and secretive, by Victoria.  

And then...

it happened.

Five days after surgery, I started to feel a little off.  I was running a fever and was in extreme pain, even more so than I had been immediately after the procedure.  I had heat radiating from underneath my right arm down to just above my rib cage.  At one point, I felt a sharp pain right around my incision area and decided to get up and take off the compression bra and check it out.

I went into the bathroom and unhooked the 47 hooks that were holding my boobs in...

And my right boob literally exploded.

Ka-BOOOOM!

I will leave out all the gory details, but suffice it to say there was a lot of screaming involved.  (I'm not easily rattled, but something about watching the insides of my boob pour down the sink unnerved me.)  When Dan came racing into the bathroom to see what I was carrying on about, his screaming, combined with mine, started a whole violent chain reaction of dogs barking, cats yowling, birds squawking, horns honking...

It was ugly.

One frantic phone call later, I was in the car and Dan was driving me the two hours to the doctor's office to investigate this turn of events.

Naturally, the doctor had never had anything like this happen to one of his patients.  He was very perplexed.  And concerned.

When I got there, he had a couple of his colleagues hanging around, all anxious to see what an exploded tit looked like.

They all clustered around me and made clucking and hmmm-ing noises while Dr. Feelgood poked and prodded at my raw and tattered titty.  (Dan, the bastard, stayed in the waiting room because he didn't want to look at it again... it was too gross.  Thanks, honey.)  

(If you've never stood naked from the waist up in front of a group of doctors who are all dying for a look at your boob, I wouldn't recommend it.  While their interest was purely clinical, I still felt like they should be tipping me.)

Diagnosis:  Dani had MRSA.  In her boob.  (For those who don't know, MRSA is a flesh-eating super bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotics.  My boob doctor had never seen it before in any of his patients.  Nor had any of his colleagues.  If you googled "MRSA after boob job" I'm pretty sure my picture is the only one that would come up.  A big fat medical mystery, was I.)

For weeks and weeks and months and months (and no, I'm not exaggerating, for once) I made the trip, two hours each way, three times a week to have horrible, disgusting, painful things done to my boob.  I would bite my lip and close my eyes and not make any noise, while the nurse would hold my hand and cry.  

Afterward, I would go get in the car and sob for the entire two hours that it took us to get home.

I had tubes hanging out of me.  Gauze and tape and bleach and three different antibiotics, three to four times a day became part of my routine.

Eight weeks later, I had to go back to work.

I was still sicker than I've ever been before (or want to be again), still in tons of pain, still taking a billion pills...

And on my first day back at work, my student punched me as hard as he could, square in the boob.  

Two days later, I was back at the doctor with cellulitis.

Other people go in, get their implants, go home, put on a bikini, and become porn stars, all in a matter of minutes.

I go get breast implants and almost die.

Does any of this surprise anyone?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

No, of course not.  Because it's me. 

Eventually, I stopped dying long enough for the jagged edges of my boobage to grow back together.  For the first time in 30 years, I had the perky protrusions that required no holster and damned if I don't love that.  Granted, righty has the appearance of having been in a knife fight, but since Hugh Hefner won't return my calls, I'm pretty sure that doesn't matter at this point.

And once again, I give myself to all of you as a cautionary tale:  

Be careful what you wish for.