This is 6 part series about my breast cancer and reconstruction surgeries—some real talk, a bit of education, and most importantly some humor.
Here’s how it works: fat is removed through liposuction—think thighs, hips, flanks, and abdomen in my case—processed, and then injected back into the chest to restore a more natural slope and contour to the breasts. When I (only sort of jokingly) asked if the surgeon could take more fat than he needed, I learned something surprising: only about 50% of what’s removed is usable after processing. So, to get enough for the chest, they actually take double.
In my case, that meant 800cc of fat was removed (my chef brother found it important to let me know that’s about 3 cups, bleh), and 210cc was injected into each breast—420cc total. (For context, each implant is also 400cc.) The math alone made me wince. And so did the 11 incision points—eight for fat retrieval and three for injections. And the bruising? Let’s just say it looked like I went twelve rounds in a boxing ring and absolutely lost.
Now I get to spend a few weeks in a glorified medieval torture device known as a compression garment. It’s tight in all the wrong places, cuts into the tops of my thighs and high on my abdomen, and comes with a crotch cut-out—because apparently, the only thing worse than peeing in this thing is having to take it off first.
When Dr. Pacella first told me I’d need to wait 8 to 10 months after my implant surgery before having this final fat grafting procedure, I remember thinking: that’s forever. And yet, somehow, here we are. The final surgery.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s healing. Not healing like the spa kind. Healing like the ugly, aching, uncomfortable kind that takes up space in your body and brain whether you want it to or not. It’s one more step in a process that started with cancer, meandered through drains, tissue expanders, and silicone implants, and now ends here—with a bruised belly, lipoed thighs, and a little more softness up top.
And here’s the thing: the fat grafting didn’t fix everything. Not the ripples under my skin, not the lumps, not the slight asymmetries. There are places where the fat didn’t take, places that I notice but other people wouldn’t. Little bumps here, slight unevenness there. It’s not the perfect. It’s not smooth or flawless. But it’s perfect enough. It’s real. It’s the kind of imperfection that tells a story, the kind that reminds me of what I’ve been through and what I’ve come out of. And for now, that’s more than enough.
This surgery didn’t fix everything. Not the sensation I still don’t have – and never will, not the grief, not the gratitude or the complicated, inescapable mixture of both. But it did something. It did enough. And maybe, for now, that’s all reconstruction needs to be.
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