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August 11, 2004

Plastic Surgery & More

I apologize, this is long and a bit personal. Reader discretion is advised. . .

Other than stomach stapling there is one other kinda awkard, semi-private question people have been asking me. Since loosing most of my weight, I have had several friends and one or two enemies ask me about what I am planning on doing with my extra skin. Up till a month or two ago I had not given it much thought. Then while channel surfing, Shelly and I watched a show about plastic surgery. It had on a boy about 14 yrs. old that had moobs. Moobs=Man Boobs. For a 14yr. old boy his moobs were larger than normal so his mom was going to pay to have them removed(via Gynecomastia-official term). So then the doctor came on and explained that 33% of men have moobs to varying degrees. Mostly due to inheriting them from some family genes. Anyway the procedure is the same as a woman's breast reduction. They take out the fat and remove the excess skin. In this case cause he is a boy they make him totally flat instead of a smaller cup size. About half way through the show I was ready to flip to something else but Shell wanted to finish it out so we did. The next segment was on a lady who had a tummy tuck & some liposuction, the final sgement was about a lady who had a Panniculectomy(basically left over skin removed from around her midsection after loosing a bunch of weight.)

By the time the program was over my head was spinning. I never really believed in most cases that plastic surgery was needed by anyone. Yes kids with problems(cleft palettes, etc.) and car crash victims, sure. But just cause you do not like the nose God gave you? Nah, not worth it. However, seeing the boy with the moobs and the lady with the excess skin really hit home for me. I have struggled with moobs my whole life. I believe moobs have been the source of much of my personality flaws. As a chubby kid with chubby moobs I was the one to get picked on and made fun of, I can't tell you how many times kids grabbed them and twisted them or how horrible i felt when in gym class we had to pick teams to play a game and my side was the one who had to play skins. My chubby moobs bounced as i ran after the basketball and it was probably the most dreaded thing of my young life.

As I said, I think those things have shaped my personality. I learned to become very quick and vicious with my tongue because others hurt me with theirs on a daily basis. I had to hurt them before they could hurt me. (as they say, "a good offense is your best defense") I used to dread going swimming in the summers, even though it truly is my favorite sport and past time. (In Boy Scouts I actually got a patch for swimming a mile.) It was just the way people stare at you. Whether they were looking at my fat body as a whole or specifically staring at my moobs, didn't matter to me. I can understand how some people can be so emotionally and psychologically controlled by there fears cause when it came to swimming and gym class or showing off my body, I was.

So now my life and body have changed, but I am left with the same fat High School Kid on the inside. My thinking has yet to change. The way I look at myself has changed very little, I am still a fat person living in a slightly thinner body. I am still struggling to deal with my moobs and after loosing a lot of weight they are still there, as is lots of flab in my stomach, thighs, upper arm, neck. This is disappointing to me to say the least.

My flab:

So am I gonna rush out a get some surgery to correct my flaws? No. Practically speaking I don't have the money to do it and if I did there are so many other things that I would rather do for and with my family that I would never spend the money on the surgery. If some TV show offered me the surgery on a silver platter I would probably accept. (but I haven't filled out any apps, so this is unlikely). And if someone is gonna give me that much money to get rid of my moobs I would rather take it and put in a swimming pool and get some more exercise equipment. So even I would turn down the chance to get rid of my flab. In other words my moobs & flab are here to stay.

Posted by smitty at August 11, 2004 6:10 PM

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