June 16: Because I believe that every single moment in life can be teachable if the student cares to learn, I’ve made it a habit of mine to always maintain a clean, well placed, rear view mirror. I want to not only look forward as my instant gratifier personality traits often drives me, but also remember to turn around and look back at the road just traveled and possibly even those not traveled at all when I came to a junction. So having just left this week what I assume to be my very last breast appointment, I find myself glancing backward at my chosen path evaluating the outcome of my choice. It’s been almost a year to date since I first learned of the new/now old medical data surrounding lymphoma survivors. Ironic that the last appointment fell almost to that exact date of my knowledge of there needing to be a decision. Was it successful? Did everything prove true? I’m one of the few people without the BRCA gene that have chosen this route, maybe one of the first of many to come. I’ve crossed over from the 75%+ chance of breast cancer with limit treatment options to now being <5%. I didn’t “feel” when I cross over that line, but I’m told it happened. I imagine <5% came August 7, 2012 when the scalpel made its very last resection and the final piece of breast tissue left in the skin envelope was placed onto the glass slide for pathology results. At the exact moment when the Lead Breast Surgeon looked down and observed she had in fact finished that OR case after 5+ hours of standing over my chest. I didn’t “feel” the percentage transition occur, but it happened. I’m sure to her I was just another case, maybe better than others since I in fact did not have breast cancer. Her usual mastectomies were not curative, but rather just one modality to help the survival chances better fought with rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. For this woman laying on her OR table, she was in fact taking the sole measure to save my life (from a breast cancer death anyway). I do wonder what her thoughts were at that moment. I know my decision was controversial to her. She gave me options to wait a year or two to ensure I wasn’t planning to have kids. She wanted to be sure I had thought through every aspect of the decision and got other medical opinions (for she knew way better what lie in wait for me). She wanted me to be informed. Well to me, I was informed. 75%+ breast cancer. That was all I needed to hear. I’m usually very quick to make medical decisions (I know those of you that go to a restaurant with me are laughing at this very moment when I am paralyzed by having to choose an option from a menu. Menus are a flaw of mine). Medical decision making is an area I feel confident in. I considered myself stupid NOT to do this mastectomy. So, yes, I was very sure in my choice. Well, as sure as I could be in July 2012 pre mastectomy. I discovered her thoughts later the following morning when she came to discharge me from the hospital. When she instructed me under no circumstances to open those bandages (see post from the Fall titles “Looking back to Day 0 part 1 and 2”). She knew exactly what I was getting in to. Little did I know that a very black and white medical decision led to some very grey aftermath that in many ways would affect everyone in my surroundings, particularly family. Let me tell you my foresight was a far cry from my hindsight in this one. But my hindsight has allowed me to glean some really incredible pearls of wisdom. Some already partially realized pre mastectomy, but better solidified post. Some are brand spanking new to my cerebral awareness.
Husbands come in all shapes, sizes, commitment levels, and emotional intelligence. My husband scores incredibly high in the area of "marriage through thick and thin." Lead Plastic Surgeon as well as Lead Breast Surgeon both said confirmatory statements about Ron at my last appointments with each. Both alluding to “Sally, you don’t know how great you have it. We see divorce after divorce happening after mastectomy.” Well, yes I do know just how great I have it. He’s proven it time and time again this past year. Not like I ever had a doubt but there is definite proof in the pudding. There where those moments when I was standing in the shower, and there he stood with me wet to the core with a loofa in hand since I had no range of motion. “Nooks and Crannies” we joked, me in tears, him pulling me back together piece by piece, then grabbing a towel to get me dry when I was paralyzed in nothing short of shock. Or the 10+ pillows being repositioned night after night since I absolutely could not find comfort in bed. Me having to wake him up every 45 minutes to reposition, him jumping right up at any moment more than eager to help. Then being obligated to empty the contents of clot filled breast drains into a Tupperware bowl hour after hour when I would fall apart at the thought of having to do it even one more time. Or even further back, when I asked him what choice we should make and him not blinking an eye saying we needed to do this. He loved me with boobs, he loved me without boobs (the true test of a man), and now he loves me with imposter boobs and weight gain. And the amazing thing is I never saw a variance in love despite the stage. In fact, we are stronger for it. Mastectomy care is full time, and he abandoned everything of self to be fully devoted to me. There are few men in this world that would be what Ron proved himself to be. And without a lick of preparation! This I learned: Women, wait for quality. It’s out there. You never know when you are going to need someone to empty your breast drain at 6 in the morning when all you yourself want to do is crawl into the fetal position. But slowly, as you watch your spouse step up to the plate time and time again, you find yourself doing the same.
Vanity is relative. I have never once in life considered myself vain by the worldly standard of the word. Sure, any woman likes a good hair day or a cute outfit. A compliment from a passerby, but I had long since learned I was not the worldly standard of beauty. I’ve always struggled with my weight since my lymphoma therapy as a teenager. I very much remember the day my coach told me my weight was out of control. That was my first realization I had a twinge of vanity. I didn’t keep up with the fashions per se. I wore what I had. I definitely never once thought I would get cosmetic surgery (other than my mandatory cleft lip repairs) particularly breast implants. I remember when Lead Plastic Surgeon told me I wasn’t a candidate for the natural tissue reconstruction - removing fat from the abdomen and making breast tissue out of it - since I had received so much radiation to my abdomen as a teenager. I was devastated. That felt like a more “real” option to me, and I desperately wanted to go that route. Instead, I had one option: Implants. And when last July I started searching the net to see the pictures of mastectomy reconstruction, I quickly found myself experiencing vanity first hand. I began having panic attacks about the scarring I was seeing in those pictures. I remember that afternoon after having spent a majority of the night on the web now sitting on my knees in my sister’s craft room painting a baseboard. My mom and sister were up on ladders working on the wall, and all of a sudden I just lost it into a full fledge sob. Those scars were etched into my mind and I could get them out. Well, ladies, let me tell you that the moment that resident pulled off that bandage (Post titled Looking back to Day 0) and I saw the scarred contents that remained, I would have shoved a cantaloupe under my skin and called it a day. I very much found myself the recipient of unapologetic full fledge vanity. Who had I been kidding all that time? I’m just like any other person out there. So this too I learned: 1) Don’t look at scarring on the internet. Procedures are amazing now and I have the best scars ever (considering). I'll show you if you ever find yourself in this position. 2) Vanity exists in all of us and you quickly can change “what I would never do” when you find yourself in a situation of needing implants very badly. 3) If you do look at pictures on the internet, don’t commit to painting a room covered in old brown wood paneling. Awful place to have a breakdown. However, if you are stupid like me, make sure both your sister and your mom are there so they can absorb all the newly found curse words that fly out of your mouth in that given moment both over the paneling and the scarring. (Sorry mom.) And also win the lottery so you can buy your sister a suitable painter.
Don’t let anyone you know go through mastectomy alone and more importantly don’t allow yourself to go though it alone. I don’t know why in life we consider so many things “private affairs”. Why in the world would God bring us (or allow) a certain event in life and want us to be hush hush about it when this whole entire world is about His kingdom. It doesn’t have a single moment of orbit around me. So by sharing the journey, we grow with others, through others, and just maybe someone will grow because of us. About the only thing in life that might should be considered private is finances. We shouldn’t hide miscarriages, we shouldn’t hide infertility, we shouldn’t hide the death of a loved one, we shouldn’t hide job loss, we shouldn’t hide mastectomy (at least from very close friends). Sure we need to grieve on our own for a period of time, but we also need to make ourselves vessels and also allow others to teach us in the process (my opinion anyway). Mastectomy being about a breast, I understand why you would want to crawl into a hole and hide the whole battle from everyone around you. But I don’t think that is what God intended for us. He designed us for community not for self. And I for one would not have fared even remotely this “well” had I not had each and everyone one of you involved. I get it. You don’t want to air out your boobage in front of all of the world (you don’t have to be so drastic as to do a social media update), but those close friends who have been there time and time again…. Involve them. And friends, involve yourself! Get nosey and get into the lives of those around you. You might just be amazed at what comes from that either for yourself or the person standing in front of you. I regained a college roommate because of this journey. I met some incredible new people. I even found some new pieces of me I didn’t know where down there. I truly think God has a plan in that if we can just learn to get out of ourselves for long enough to let him do something with our muck.
A bra, is not a bra, is not a bra. Particularly a surgical bra. Just last week I threw mine away. I’m kicking myself for it. I should have kept it for show and tell. I should have kept it as a reminder to myself. And these fancy underwire things we shove ourselves into for beauty….well keep on doing it ladies! I’ve always known lipstick goes a super long way for a cancer patient in the midst of treatment. Well so do fancy bras for the post mastectomy. They may be a pain in the boob, but they serve their purpose after being restricted to surgical and sports bras (and no bras for that matter) for months on end! Vanity bad, vanity good. I still laugh (and cry out of joy) when my mom had to go bra shopping for me and she came back with 6 or 7. I just COULD NOT for the life of me find comfort for even one more minute in that surgical bra clinching my drain sites and bringing me to tears. It had-to-come-off-stat! So there mom went store after store after store all for little ole me. A bra, is not a bra, is not a bra, nor is a mother. You need a good one of both. Score!
If you decide to start a mastectomy blog, hang on tight! It will change just about everything, particularly if you promise transparency which I 100% recommend. It has its setbacks. You may be sitting in an office meeting with people who now know the new shape of your impostor or who read about your drain drama from the evening before. Or you walk into a crowded room where you just know the face of the person across the table, but they know every detail of your previous day when you woke up that morning with blood running down your arm. But at the same moment there just may be a woman in Iran who is struggling with the loss of a breast who needs to read your words, because she lives in a country where she can’t speak openly about sexuality or anything that remains covered by native attire. You may be her only source of an outlet. She may be reading your words finding a source of triumph that she isn’t alone. I’m learning that I have to at time expose my own weakness and ineptitudes so that some other woman may not feel utterly alone. I also like to find you laughing at my High Profile Smooth Round Implants when earlier that morning you had a fight over the breakfast cereal. But transparency has it’ sown benefit for me. It forced me not to hide under the shame you want to feel in all of it. It keeps me in touch with the realities of tough journeys and one day you look back and find you are on the other side. And not only are you on the other side, you are stronger on the other side.
I’m more of a woman than I was on August 6, 2012. And I hope at this very moment I am less of a Godly woman than I will be on August 6, 2022. I’m getting older, and hopefully wiser….and I have brand new quirky boobs that absolutely will grow old with grace.
Hugs to each of you. You have made my journey brighter and more laughable.
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Click www.tradinginthetatas.blogspot.com to access other posts.
