Literature and Medicine II

51 In her search to have her breasts reduced to a manageable size, she came across a man, reputed to be the leading breast surgeon in the area, who told her that he would not do surgery on her as she would develop keloids. He then went to take a phone call, leaving her body chilled and naked from the waist up in his examining room, even though she defensively showed him her C-section scar, smooth and non-keloidal. Silently she dressed myself, left, tried to shake his spirit-killing oppression from her heart, entering out-of-body numbness again so as to function and not function.

52 “Systems of domination materialize in the voices of women” (Spitzack 4).

53 On the other hand, the “lollipop” or “short-scar” technique involves no cutting and thus no remaining scar tissue at the center of the chest. Apparently this technique can also be described as a “vertical reduction mammoplasty with superior pedicle” or the “lollipop” technique (Otrompke 18). Reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of this new technique, reported in a news article published in 2005, the surgeon is reported to have been at work on the refinement of this technique for five years, after he became familiar with the techniques of two European surgeons who had been using the procedure on thousands of European patients for over 30 years.

54 European patients bearing ghostly breasts “tip’t with vermilion” with tiny areolae. Treating this as an academic matter, she tells herself, is vital. It is a matter of survival.

55 This is the technique portrayed in illustrations on the breast reduction section of the website of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. One of the disadvantages is that “you cannot do it in a breast of more than a certain size, and in breasts in which you take off more than 800 grams from each side” (Otrompke 18). The above-mentioned website of the A.S.P.S. says nothing about this caveat. In all the discussions about improvements in techniques, absolutely nothing is said about the areola.