Holy Areoly!

Yesterday was the morning of my newest tattoo - the one that will be least visible, unless I change my career path. I'm sure there's some sort of breast cancer fetish, but perhaps I will not join the ranks of one-breasted porn stars.

That's right. Areola-Mania.

Hubs got home from the gig really late, or early - like 3 or 4 am. Our appointment was 9am. Cruel? I told him he didn't "have" to go, but how could he refuse? I crossed the bridge from having a ripply bag o' water under my stretched out pec muscle, with a big slash across it (yeah, it's kind of rock star, I suppose...) to watching my surgeon mix colors to try and match my existing areola. At one point he had around 10 swipes of color next to the existing one, like an old lady at the lipstick counter in Macy's, trying to decide which one would look best around her actual lips, on her face. Yeah, I actually said one of the colors looked like that. Anyway, my surgeon said that it was tough to match my coloring with what they had. I said - nothing matched before, so I'm pretty sure it will be an improvement.

And I pulled out the First Day Meeting my Plastic Surgeon So I Might As Well Strip Down and Show Him My Breasts photo in my medical chart.

Ya know what? They were crazy different. Color, size, I really looked like a weird photoshop of two women.

So I picked a color and we went for it.

He numbed me. Why? I barely have feeling. But I have enough tattoos to know that THEY HURT LIKE HELL when you can feel, and since this was such an emotional procedure, once again completely altering myself, it's best to not feel pain. I was still surprised though, and sometimes the needle hurt.

Hubby got sappy as always. The whole time, my eyes watered. And of course, I had no pain. I just thought back to my mother's caved in frame, it seemed impossible that she had once had 2 breasts. The horrific mutilation of her body (I'm sure it was the usual back then) left her with so little femininity. I knew that. I knew she missed feeling like a beautiful woman. She was, don't get me wrong, but I look at myself now and think, "What the hell happened???" And that, my friends, is why I got my tattoo today.

It has to be covered for a day, so most likely the unveiling will be tonight. We're heading to a cancer conference in a few, even though hubby is on 3 hours of sleep from 2 nights ago and is probably coming up on his third from last night, unless his alarm has gone off (I'm in the studio warming up, and apparently, blogging). I don't know how he does it. We'll conference all day and then he has a gig uptown. Me? I have the option of strolling home if that's my desire. But tomorrow is out of town for a day gig.

I haven't worked out in a week, but I lost the weight. Really, it was a matter of intermittent fasting. But, we went out to dinner last night -it was asian fusion stuff, and tasted great, and I gained a pound back (but am still a sliver under pre-diagnosis weight!!!) However, I hope that I can keep it within a reasonable range. I hope... otherwise, the tamoxifen is out the window.

But they had chocolate mousse cake. Damnit.