A year ago yesterday my breasts were sliced off and carried to a lab without me. I still miss them, miss the nerve endings that enveloped them. Not so much for the fun reasons you might be thinking of, though those fun reasons would be frosting on the (cup)cake(s). I just miss being able to feel anything at all in my chest. I miss having breasts as a visible identifier of membership in the female gang.
Last night Laura told me stories about the hours around the surgery -- she reminded me of the huge inflatable warmer they cover you with before surgery. Warm air is pumped through this body-shaped balloon and in the last moments before going under you look down the length of your body to see Dolly Parton's buxom outline. The balloon blanket warmed me up, but my mind made the shape meaningful in ways that weren't comforting.
In the recovery room, I apparently was pretty upset. I didn't know this part. I was crying a lot, saying over and over again that I was scared. Laura says I alternated between wailing and saying hello to my family as chipperly as I could: "How's everyone doing?" then "Waah! I'm so scared!"
The nurse was nodding slowly as she mouthed to Laura "NORMAL. This is perfectly normal."
A volunteer was doing Reiki over my bandaged chest. Laura thought she seemed to be faking it.
I've got a client whose mom is about to have her third surgery to finalize the shape of her prosthetic breasts. Her incisions got infected after her mastectomies, and then she got another infection when they put in the tissue expanders, inserted to stretch out her skin to make room for the silicone implants. It is hard for me to absorb needing the illusion of breasts so much that you'd put your body through all that, especially after it has dealt with cancer. It seems like whipping a horse after a long race.
And yet I do miss having breasts. I don't want to want fake ones, but I envy those who get them without this likely-to-be-chronic ambivalence I carry.
For me, hearing about other people and their prosthetic breasts is like watching people heading out to a very fancy dress ball. I feel left out and somehow less than, but I also know I wouldn't feel comfortable if I tagged along, no matter how fancy my get-up.
The past year has been packed with tired horses, hungry wolves, existential sudoku, footy pajamas under a fancy skirt, and nothing, ever again, beneath my shirt. It's also been full of baby giraffes, snowy owls, noble gladiators, and the miracle of a body healing as much as it can.
I think it's been a good year.
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Dear Paula,
ReplyDeleteIt's good to acknowledge and mourn what's been lost and cannot be replaced. It's also good to recognize the healing that has taken place in a year's time.
You had major, radical surgery to save your LIFE. But, I know you paid a very high price.
I get what you're saying about a sense of alienation. I think I would make the same choices about reconstructive surgery. As an extreme example(true confessions here),I watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and I wonder if I am even a member of the same species as those plastic-mutilated females. Maybe I'm just a hopeless New Englander, but I find those poor women painful and sad to look at. For what it's worth, I think you are WAY more beautiful than all of them put together, inside and out!
I struggle with elective, cosmetic surgery for non-medical reasons. I do, however, understand why people might want to replace a body part that's been lost to cancer or by a birth defect or to an accident. Still, to undergo more surgery and all the potential complications that might arise...worth some ambivalence.
I hope year 2 is full of more magic, much healing and heaps of happiness for you and your family.
P, your candor is very moving. I feel like a priviledged guest allowed to peek through your window into such a complex, profoundly vulnerable, unfathomable rite of passage. I feel that as a sensitive soul I can tap into the archetypal experience of suffering and relate.......yet I know that in my humanness I cannot begin to comprehend, truly, the complexity of emotion and pain that is the experience of losing one's breasts to cancer. Namaste, P. Thanks, again.
ReplyDeleteThe baby giraffe totally made your year, seems to me.
ReplyDeleteWe've all learned so much, Paula, about mastectomies, chemo, and healing. Your wit makes all those lessons worth learning.
wow a year. Good for you. Maybe you've become more, not less?
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