High Maintenance Woman

Music hath charms to soothe a SAVAGE BREAST, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. - William Congreve

Note that the quote refers to BREAST, not beast which was what I had thought it was all my life. I only opened with that line because it brings up the topic of savage breasts, which is what this post is about. Other than that, the quote is entirely irrelevant.
You'd think that after a mastectomy, if nothing else, it would be faster to get ready in the morning, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. After the surgery, Kaiser sent me home with these 2 little mastectomy camisoles; complete with adjustable cushion things that attach to the front with velcro, and pockets for your surgery drains (if you want more info on the drains, I can tell you about it in an individual email. I took pictures to send to my sister who I would've thought could handle it, but she wrote to me that she unassumingly opened the email while eating breakfast and the pictures made her feel "kinda funny". )

So anyway, these little cushiony things are deceptively complicated. First you have to take the right amount of stuffing out of it to make your two sides appear balanced (another advantage to having a bilateral mastectomy- at least I would be symmetrical). Then you have to get it attached at the right part of your chest. I gave myself 20 minutes in the morning to wrestle with those little savages and still make it to mass on time, but it took 30. Even then I had to conceed the battle and ended up leaving the house looking like the darker side of plastic surgery (one side subtly higher and the other side most definitely larger). Fortunately the weather is still cool enough to excuse a light wool coat. Don't know what Ill do when it gets warmer- I guess that's a problem for another day.