THE BREAST EXPERIMENT TEST SUBJECT X REVISITED ONE YEAR LATER
8-13-06 POST RATED: Test Subject X, Artsucks Breast Exeperiment, Artsucks Bra
It's been over two years since one of my fans contacted me and explained via e-mail that she had the best breasts in the world. She also told me that she was once morbidly obese and that she had her stomach stapled and had lost mad weight, yet her breasts have remained awesome and have not budged a size. They were still 48 ddd.
It was a lighthearted experiment, but there is a serious side to bariatric surgery that I was hoping to document in an artistic way that would be interesting to web readers. I naturally wondered what would happen to the various body parts as the bariatric surgery's effects ran their course, as well as the psychological effects of loosing so much weight so fast.
The initial idea was to have her photograph her breasts in an Artsucks painted bra once a month and have her write in detail what was happening. All the changes, all the different effects as they occurred from month to month, and the emotional toll it was taking on her. What I didn't expect was for her to be so traumatized. She was depressed and only managed to do the photography side of the experiment. She wasn't able to write about the events as they unfurled as they were too real, and too soon. It hurt too much for her to put into words.
In the year after the experiment I would ask her every so often if she could write something up. It wasn't until this week that she was actually willing to spill her guts on the whole experience. She really opened up and pulled no punches.
Here is her story in her own words:
"This is Test Subject X, and you all should remember me from CojoÄôs Breast Experiment that ended in May of 2005. Cojo recently asked me to do a follow up to his story and give his fans an in depth look at what it was like to go through bariatric surgery. There is a lot more to it then whether or not huge breasts will shrink with the weight loss.
I had my surgery done in March of 2004, so I am almost three years post-op. The first year after of my surgery was an absolute nightmare. The weight loss was quite dramatic, in fact within the first two weeks I lost forty pounds. Now imagine what kind of toll that takes on your body. It was havoc. I spent my first few months in a rather lethargic state. I rarely got out of bed, and I had to force down my liquid meals on a daily basis.
I survived on liquid food for about eight months, and then slowly began the transition of reintroducing solid food back into my body. Eating for me was the equivalent of having someone kick you in the gut with every mouthful. I despised eating but if I didnÄôt I would get bitched at by my doctors but whatÄôs a little malnutrition anyway? Let me tell you, it means losing your hair. That was one of the harder things I had endured in the first year. They warned me that my hair would fall out, but I had no idea to what extent. Being an obese woman, it is hard to find things that you like about yourself, and my thing was my hair. It was gorgeous, espresso brown, curly hair that almost fell down to the small of my back. Within a months time, almost all of it had fallen out. I was devastated, but I knew it was a small price to pay for the greater good. At the end of my first year I had lost an astounding one hundred and fifty pounds, and my doctors dubbed me healthy enough to hit the gym.
In January of 2005 my relationship with the gym began. Now remember, I spent most of my life grossly overweight, fearing any sort of physical activity, so I was petrified of this place. This was the first time since I was a child that I was exercising and not feeling like I was going to keel over. The sense of being able to move like that was more then liberating. Needless to say I became a gym junkie, I was there every day at 5 am for at least two hours. I stayed with that regiment through August 2005, where my weight loss plateaued, and I was no longer losing weight every week. This was hard for me to accept because I thought something was wrong with me now that I was not losing weight anymore, but the doctors assured me that this was exactly what was supposed to happen. After my eight month stint at the gym I had lost another sixty-five pounds, making a total weight loss of 215 pounds. Physically I felt unstoppable, but emotionally I was a mess.
It was at this time all the emotional aspects of my transformation came into play. I had to start seeing a therapist because I was dealing with numerous self-image issues. I lived my whole young life one way, fat, and How do people treat the fat kid? Think about it. This is what I was having such a hard time dealing with, people treated me differently now because I looked differently.
On the inside I was the same person I always was, but now since I looked the way society deems acceptable I was getting all this attention. Instead of making me feel good, it made me feel like less of a person, as if I was not good enough when I was overweight. Not to mention feeling alienated in my own body. For example, catching a glance of myself in a store front window and doing a double take because you donÄôt realize thatÄôs you in the reflection.
I am constantly having to remind myself I can fit places now, like booths at restaurants, seats on buses or airplanes, rides at amusement parks, because my first thought is always you wonÄôt fit there, or you may break that if you sit on it. Also, the way I dream is freakish. When I dream, I donÄôt see myself as the way I look now, but as the old me. It freaks the hell out of me but my therapist says all bariatric patients experience that because our mind has not caught up to the physical changes just yet. The last couple of months have been the best for me yet but I am still plagued by one last nuisance: The Skin.
When the body loses a massive amount of weight in a short period of time, your are left with an obscene amount of excess skin, and that is what I have to deal with. Whatever chubbiness I have left on my body is not fat it is left over skin. This is what I have the most problems with, I am twenty-five years old but look like I have the body of an eighty year old woman. I am going to have plastic surgery to correct this but the process of waiting for this to happen has been more arduous then losing the actual weight.
Last December, I went for my consultation with my plastic surgeon, which had was the most dehumanizing and humiliating experience of my life. I had to have about 50 photographs taken of myself just wearing paper underwear to cover my crotch. I was asked to stand this way and that, hold this up here and so on and so forth. If my boyfriend who has been my rock through this whole experience was not there with me I would have lost my mind.
It has taken several months but I am now in the final stages of waiting, I should have a surgery date within in a week or two if all goes well. The real shitty part of the whole plastic surgery thing, is not all of it may be covered by insurance. Real fucking nice right. I believe that if the doctors tell you if you do not have this surgery you will die, the upkeep afterwards should be covered, end of story.
All in all I am in a good place. I am confident in who I am. People ask me all the time if I would do it again if I had to, and I always say yes. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of being healthy, and having the chance to enjoy a brand new beginning."
Test Subject X
Gabrielle C.
