While I don’t intend for my blog, Alive-Awake-Uncomfortable, to become a Cancer Blog (TM), much of what makes me uncomfortable lately is confronting aspects my diagnosis of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, so … here we are once again!
It may not surprise you to hear, that as a busy of mom of 4, I sometimes rush from one thing, to the next, to the next, and to the next. Time management skills not withstanding, I often find myself in a hurry.
Slow, lingering time to myself isn’t something I come by too often, unless I really carve it out and the stars align.
Heck, my kids are far from little needy infants (someone remind them of that, please!) but sometimes I skip a shower or more; even when I get one, I don’t stay and luxuriate for very long.
I shampoo/condition/suds up/might shave/rinse off and I’m toweling off and on to a quick wardrobe change.
But sometimes, lately, I linger.
I pick out some clothes. Unwrap my towel.
And look in the mirror.
At my breasts.
My breast that has cancer doesn’t look different.
It isn’t red or swollen or lopsided.
It doesn’t look lumpy. Or angry.
You sometimes hear about those warnings, and that people who notice changes should go and get such things checked out by a doctor and have a mammogram.
But mine?
It looks like the same little breast it’s always been.
I mean, it’s been through phases where it’s fuller, or nursing a child, or where I’ve been heavier and have a little extra breast tissue.
It’s worn some outfits better than others.
But it’s the same old breast.
Not that I have generally ever stopped to look or dwell on them much.
But now I find myself lingering a little.
Looking a little.
At how they sit, how they curve.
Preparing myself to say goodbye to them.
(.)(.)
I have chosen to have a bilateral mastectomy, which means surgeons will remove both of my breasts.
Though my tumor (the “Chihuahua”) was under a centimeter at last measure during my second biospy in August, and I initially thought a less-invasive lumpectomy made the most sense, I didn’t want to have the recommended accompanying radiation. And the way to drive down reoccurrences of breast cancer pretty significantly is to have a bilateral mastectomy. Since I’m dealing with this for the first time at 44, I think driving those chances of recurrences popping up every couple of years makes a lot of sense.
I have also chosen to have recostruction (or plastic surgery) to replace what is removed. Except, I won’t have breast tissue. I’ll have implants in the place of these little breasts I’ve had since I was about 12 or 13.
Funny thing about these little breasts: I kept waiting for them to be something more.
I don’t know if kids today have the same expectations about their bodies and maturing, but as a female kid in the 80s and 90s, we were pretty much promised that puberty would be transformative and warp us into something worthy of, like, Baywatch-level looks.
Me? I waited.
Hoped I was a late bloomer.
And I was, a bit, I guess.
But when I bloomed, I just bloomed … small.
Curses, genetics! Foiled again. Not only did I not somehow magically get tall (topped out at 5’2″), or magically become coordinated and make the cheerleading squad, I *also* didn’t get a nice Barbie-doll style rack.
Are you there, God?
I'd like to file a complaint about unexpectedly small boobs.
I had definitely been cheated!
I remember all my female classmates started wearing bras around 5th or 6th grade. By mid-6th grade, I told my mom that I needed one too. She assured me I certainly did not 😆. But eventually conceded to let me have a little bralette or two (we called them “training bras,” folks… what *were* we training for?!) and wow, even though I couldn’t pass the “pencil test”, was I ever relieved.
I just needed to… um, fill it?
And I did.
A little.
Eventually.
Honestly, I could generally go comfortably with or without a bra, but wanting what I *didn’t have* made me commit to it all the more.
And sometimes, probably try to cheat a little and stuff it.
Oh boy. I groan and blush at my pre-pubescent/tweenage self – and now that I’m writing it out here in this blog – but I know we all have some version of these memories around our changing bodies and selves.
So yeah. My “girls” never looked great in dresses, or swim suits, or outfits meant to show them off. They were small, but such was my lot in life.
I worked at a summer camp through my college years and was usually a Unit Director in the latter years. That meant bunking with some of the best, riciulously silly girlfriends I’d ever find in my life.
At camp, you become… close.
Maybe too close? Camp people, back me up – you KNOW what I mean!
You share the good, the gross, the sheer ridiculous.
You cackle and howl as you listen to your amply “blessed” friend bemoan her breast-related back pain and sleep discomfort due to summertime boob sweat.
You even help her NAME her “girls” voluptuous, sassy names so you can refer to them publicly – but also, OF COURSE, on the sly.
You somehow end up naming yours “Skinny” and “Minnie” because … well, comparatively, there’s not too much complaining to do about them at summer camp. I mean, they still don’t look great in a swimsuit at waterfront, but meh, you’re used to that. They’re not causing back pain or adding to the sweat factor.
I sometimes forget that we named them. (And also why I’m actually telling you, dear reader, this.) But now I’m thinking about them by name as I think about saying goodbye to them.
(.)(.)
So the upcoming medical plan is, ideally, that we do removal and reconstruction as part of the same surgical experience.
That’s part of why surgery has taken a while to happen; we’re lining up two teams, and undergoing two evaluations, to do the work together.
And by the world’s standards, I may wake up in recovery with a nicer set of “girls” than I went in with.
And they might, by the world’s standards, look better in a swimsuit, or a cute dress, than my au natural breasts ever did.
I mean, the surgeon *did* feel the need to mention I had more skin than tissue, and could probably thank my 4 kids for that. 😆
But as with many surgeries, things can get in the way of the entire process being done in one fell swoop.
They have to evaluate and assess the situation as it progresses.
They’ll have to harvest some lymph nodes and make sure the “Chihuahua” isn’t “depositing any turds” there (as my friend in the medical profession likes to say). If there’s activity up there (and at this point there is no reason to believe there is), that could curb reconstruction.
Also, I’m a candidate for nipple sparing – that is, salvaging and using my nipples on top of new implanted breasts. Yup, it’s a *weird* world I’ve been learning about over the last month or two. This could potentially work and give me some sense of normalcy, because my tumor is small and isn’t behind my nipple and areolas. BUT… if my blood flow isn’t good, that too could curb immediate reconstruction.
Instead, I’d have to go back and have a separate surgery and a series of expansions of skin to allow them to reconstruct breasts. Sometimes people decide not to go back under to do this. It can be a painful experience for some women. And then there are more considerations: maybe decide, later down the road, do I even want nipples? Or do I want them tattooed on?
So yeah, ideally, it gets done in one shot.
But I’m also kind of scared to think of waking up in recovery, and finding nothing in the place of my “girls.”
I’m scared of a blank space.
I’m scared of waking up and finding nothing.
Even though I’ve always been small, I’ve always had… something.
But now the Girls are getting sent off. Along with the tumor, they’re casualties in all this.
If only the prospects of a Blank Space were this attractive.
I always remember being curious about my Mom’s “blank space” – intrigued, but also a little repulsed or nervous about it. Repulsed isn’t quite the right word, though. Squeamish? Because something was… missing? It was a visceral thing for me. Reconstruction wasn’t a thing back when she had a mastectomy, so she usually wore a prosthetic.
I’ve thought, actually many years ago, about prosthetics. A friend lost part of his leg after an accident. It made sense for his leg to go, as it wasn’t healing. He not only got a prosthetic leg, but became a prosthetic designer and advocate.
So I’d thought things like, “Well, if I was in an accident like that, I’d do that too!” But I just never thought about voluntarily *choosing* to give up a body part.
It’s helped me to reframe my decision for a bilateral mastectomy as “an accident at the cellular level.”
And therefore, it’s like, more OK if they have to go. It’s OK if I have to say goodbye.
(.)(.)
But that leaves me wondering about how to say goodbye. I’m a big believer in ritual, giving thanks, celebrating, taking a moment, having a last hurrah.
And my little breasts fed my four babies, for a combined total of almost (yes, I added it up!) 10 years all together.
And these Girls were part of my intimate life, of my sexual self.
And they’ve been part of my gender identity and self-expression as a woman.
… So where does that leave me?
Lighting candles and reciting a litany? (I mean, Lutherans love a litany! 😁)
Making a playlist of goodbye songs that I sing to my breasts?
Or maybe an, ahem… sassy song list about the virtues of a good set of Girls?
A huge epic blog entry? (Wait a minute…)
Or a New Orleans style send off, complete with beads and confetti and revelry and … drinking?
A sexy boudoir style photo shoot?
None of it sounds quite right.
Goodbyes are weird like that.
Say hello… or wait, goodbye… to my little friends!
(.)(.)
On a group text, my dear bestie the Medical professional, shared that someone in a pre-op situation referred to her soon-to-be annexed cancerous breast as her “sh*tty t*tty.”
While joking like this is clearly a means of coping, I wasn’t in the right space for it. It just… made me sad.
I mean, I like to joke about my tiny aggressive tumor as a nasty little Chihuahua and talk about it being “voted out” on my election day scheduled surgery.
But these little breasts of mine aren’t “sh*tty.”
I mean, cancer is a sh*tty situation, but they’re just … not.
Despite their perceived … inadequacies. 😉
They’ve accompanied me from adolescence to my mid-40s, through unsuccessful and successful style experiments; a whole look book for the ages.
They became part of me as an adult exploring my sexual self and in understanding myself in an intimate loving partnership.
They took on a new role as they nourished and comforted skinny little newborns and turned them into fat, dimpled babies.
They’ve been a source of comfort and, with my family history, of stress around mammogram time. Of concerns, but also relief. It’s complicated like that.
But I appreciate them.
I’ll miss them.
(.)(.)
I don’t know if what is ultimately reconstructed (all in one shot or through stages of surgical experiences) will feel like “mine” or just another era of me.
Time will tell.
But it also marches on.
Surgery is about 2.5 weeks out now, and my coming days are filled with physical therapy, pre-op/post-op appointments. “Vote cancer out!” day – surgery day – will be here before I know it.
I don’t really expect any ritual to make this “goodbye” feel good, but I also want honor this time.
I know we all have different levels of sentimentality, and connection to our physical selves, but I’m curious about your instincts on how to approach something like this.
So, as I linger a little longer, I ask you: how would you start to say goodbye?
alive. awake. uncomfortable. 