S1 EP10: We had plastic surgery at the same time…

For a bit of background, this is my third breast surgery. Most people have one breast reduction. I’ve had two.

The first one was after I breastfed my son for 14 months. I was going through a difficult period in my personal life at the time, and I think I overcompensated by continuing to breastfeed longer than I had planned. When I was finally ready to reduce, I went with a surgeon I could afford at the time, and it did not go well. I woke up after the procedure to be told an implant had been placed during the same operation. The problem is that after a reduction, the skin is already compromised and trying to heal. Adding an implant immediately after means the skin is also being stretched, which is a big part of why some people end up with wide, poorly-healed scarring.

Genetically, we are upper-heavy and we have always had larger breasts. My breasts grew back after that first reduction, eventually to a double H. Short torso, short frame, and a cup size that big was unsustainable. Two years ago I found a specialist plastic surgeon who I am very loyal to, had a proper consultation, and reduced to a C cup. Almost three kilograms came off each breast. I was in hospital for three days, had drains for a week, and the recovery was intense.

When the bandages came off, I hated it. That is a really common reaction after a reduction and lift. The breasts are very small initially and then fluff up over the following months as swelling settles. But the back pain, the shoulder pain, the ability to wear things I actually wanted to wear, all of that was worth it.

I had my reduction eight weeks after Biba’s second one. Same genetic situation: wired bras from year four or five, indents on my shoulders, years of minimisers to try to hide what I was dealing with.

When I booked in, I asked for as small as possible, and my surgeon took me down to a C cup. When the bandages came off, I cried. I said “I look flat chested.” That feeling is really common, especially right after surgery when you have not had small breasts for most of your life. What I did not expect was that the loss of volume on my chest made me more aware of my stomach. I had built up body insecurities that were being covered by my breasts, and suddenly those insecurities were visible to me again.

I went on a really strict diet afterwards, and looking back now I can see it was a reaction to that discomfort rather than a real need. That is worth saying out loud because a lot of women who have reductions are not told about this part of the adjustment. The recovery is physical, but the mental piece of getting used to a new body shape is a real and valid conversation.

The physical relief from the reduction was huge. Driving home from work, I used to sit hunched in the passenger seat because my shoulders were so heavy and sore. Anyone who has carried breasts like that into their twenties and thirties knows exactly what that pain feels like. Two years on, I don’t need to wear a bra most days.

So why am I going back in? Over the last year, with weight loss and natural changes, I’ve felt I have lost projection up top. I had been going back and forth with my surgeon, who is booked out until August. A cancellation opened up a spot on the 16th, which lined up with my Easter travel plans, and I took it.

I’ve gone from double H to small C to now wanting an implant for projection. I paid on the spot. The surgery is in Wollongong, so there is a drive down, an overnight stay, and then Hydie will drive me home and stay at my place for the recovery period.

This is also a moment to acknowledge how expensive these surgeries are when they are medically needed, not just cosmetically chosen. Medicare typically contributes a very small amount towards a breast reduction, even when the back and shoulder impact is significant. As nurses, we see the physical effect these procedures have on women, and we think the support available should be much better than it is.

My nerves about tomorrow are mostly about the drive home, and wanting to sleep under anaesthetic without a phone notification or my son waking me up. Realistically, I’m ready.

A lot of people assume I have had more surgery than I actually have. Outside of the breast work, the only other surgical procedure I’ve had is liposuction on my stomach, more than a decade ago, after giving birth to my son. I talk about this openly because there is a common assumption that if you work in aesthetics, your whole body is surgical, and in my case that is not true.

That liposuction actually made my tummy area more insecure, not less, because removing the fat highlighted other things I was self-conscious about. This is a really important thing to understand about body-contouring procedures. They can shift the way you see yourself, not always in the direction you expected.

My other recovery story is wisdom teeth removal, which is not surgical in the plastic sense but was genuinely traumatic. Four wisdom teeth, done in two sessions two weeks apart. The second session involved a stubborn upper tooth that took around 25 minutes to remove while I was awake, with all the pressure and no option to think about anything else. I flew to Switzerland for a conference a few days later, in real pain, with pain relief that was not touching it. The recovery from oral surgery is underrated and we really don’t talk about it enough.

The last thing I want to do but have not committed to is surgery for a deviated septum. I only get about thirty percent of air through my right nostril, which is genuinely bad. I had one consult where the surgeon offered to “lift” my nose during the septum repair, and I walked out. If I’m going in for a functional repair, that is what I’m going in for. If you are curious about non-surgical options for nose shape, there are far less invasive routes worth exploring first.

A BBL is something I considered at one point, around the height of the craze two years ago. Looking back now, I’m grateful I did not do it. The trend has since shifted dramatically, and many of the women who had them are now having them reduced or reversed to chase the current slim silhouette.

Here is what we think about global surgery trends. Every country has procedures they are genuinely excellent at. Australia has world-class breast surgeons. Australia, in our opinion, does not have the same depth of talent for nose work. South America is where the BBL originated and where some of the best BBL results in the world are created, and also where some of the worst complications happen because not every clinic is created equal. Turkey has a reputation for value-driven surgical packages, and the reality is that the model there is often a production line. You fly in, consult, have the procedure, and fly out, with very limited aftercare.

We see the consequences of that in our clinic every week. We have clients who have had BBLs here in Sydney with practitioners who were briefly trending and produced results that we have seen come back asymmetric, then needing multiple revision surgeries at their expense. We have clients who went overseas, had complications, and came home with nobody to look after them.

None of this is to discourage anyone from a procedure they have thought about carefully. It is to say that when you are under anaesthetic, you have no control, and the person holding that scalpel needs to be someone whose work you have seen in person, not on a carefully curated feed. Influencer recommendations are often paid, and even when the influencer themselves had a bad experience, the content does not always reflect that because the contract says otherwise. Do your real research, not just social media research.

In any industry, a small number of people treat others in a way that makes you question them. Over the years we have had experiences with other practitioners and surgeons who have spoken about us and our clients in ways that were not okay. We stopped recommending one particular practitioner after a client came back from a consult with things she had been told that were just not acceptable. Not because of personal feelings, but because if that is how they talk about the person sending them clients, we do not trust how they talk about the clients themselves.

We want to be really clear about how we run our own practice. We have never paid anyone to promote us. We have never given free treatments in exchange for content. We have refused partnership offers from surgeons and dentists that involved us taking a referral percentage, because we only recommend people we genuinely trust. We have even opened up the conversation with the aesthetic clinic two doors down from ours, because there is no world in which 7 billion faces cannot support more than one practitioner who cares.

What we believe in is long-term relationships with our clients. We do not want one-off appointments. We want the client who flies interstate because they know we will not take them in and do something that is wrong for them, even if they are asking for it. If you walk in and want lip treatment when what you actually need is to address something else first, we will tell you that.

One of the most emotional things for us is reading our Google reviews. If you are ever having a rough day, go and read them. They are not just five stars. They are paragraphs, from the heart, from clients who have trusted us with their faces and their bodies. That is the whole reason we do this.

When I was in the planning stage for opening my own clinic in parramatta, my dream was being able to deliver a full experience for a client from the moment they walked in to the moment they walked out. Years later, we get to read reviews that reflect exactly that, and it still makes us emotional.

So this week’s episode wraps early because I’m going into surgery tomorrow. You will not see the result of the new surgery in the next episode or two, because recovery takes time. But we are going to document the journey on Instagram and TikTok, and you can follow along there if you want to be part of the process.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Wherever you are listening, please like, comment, and subscribe. We love you all, and we will see you next week.