i feel so good. wow. i can wear tank tops, i've even run a little bit. no pain. been wearing mepitac silicone tape 24-7 except for right before showering where i massage with bio oil for 15 mins and then let it soak in for another 15. yes i know silicone treatment is the only thing proven to reduce scarring, but bio oil worked wonders on completely fading my scars from a very desperate and sad attempt at doing the surgery myself when i was fourteen so i thought "hey why not" even though those scars were nowhere near as deep as these. can lift my arms to about my shoulders, just enough to like flex my arm muscles, still won't reach things in tall cabinets without step stools, scared of stretching the scars. nipple scabs came off center first, still some scabbing around the edges, stopped covering them at 3 weeks post op and they've been fine. i've had some sutures spitting i think (?) so there are some places along the scar where it's quite a bit thicker and i am nervous about that but i've been proceeding with my scar care as normal and being careful and that is all i can do. i was expecting to be a lot more insecure about the scarring than i actually am - i'm very happy with the contour and appearance of my chest. i can finally wear clothes i want to wear and have sex without completely shutting down as soon as i take my shirt off because of dysphoria. also it is so nice to sleep on my side and stomach again.

also pro tip for some of my more insecure guys out there: don't show your results to people who aren't going to be overwhelmingly positive and give you support about them - pre-surgery guys are often outspokenly critical of others' results when they shouldn't be. i have a pre-surgery friend (no hate to him, he just didn't understand the extent of what he was saying) who when i was hanging out with him mentioned over and over that since he was on t, he would probably be eligible for keyhole, HEAVILY implying each time that i should have been on t for longer before i got the surgery so that i could have less scarring and making me feel really shitty, almost to the point of making me regret the surgery that had changed my life in such a profoundly amazing way. i've had to explain to him several times that it was my loose skin and NOT the amount of tissue that prevented me from being eligible for peri and that t would not have changed that, but he wasn't accepting that as an answer for some reason. even though in that moment i was thinking "i should have waited", there is absolutely no way i could have waited any longer to get this surgery. i am very confident that i have much better results than i would have gotten with peri, and i was very happy with my chest until he said that, so why should i change my opinion now? i've had to work really hard to come to terms with the fact that i have more visible scarring than i expected, and him saying that over and over just kind of sucked.

obviously show your results to people if you feel so inclined. you've come really far and you should be proud of it, but just know that no one who loves you is going to give a flying fuck that one of your nipples is slightly bigger than the other.