Breasts
I'm remembering when my chest was flat as a board as a teenager. I liked the idea that breasts were going to grow some day, but as they grew, I had second thoughts.
Now I really like having a flat chest again. It feels RIGHT. Getting rid of the cancer, for sure, was the main motivation, but more was bubbling up to the surface. As I talked with queer friends, I realized that my flat chest would mean more than cleaning out cancer. It reconnected me with my androgyny. I embraced that.
During those couple days before my surgery, I found myself mourning the loss of the breasts that nurtured my babies. Being post-menopausal, of course I would never nurse another baby, but the surgery made this fact more definite.
Today, I put on a relatively new sweater that I used to love, which is now a bit too small. I wondered what it would be like to be so conspicuously flat-chested. I felt like I was acting in support of other flat-chested women, eliminating a little bit of shame. I'm amused now as I remember my new pulmonologist reading down my lengthy list of diagnoses this morning, doubting that I truly had most of them. And then he arrived at cancer and stopped short, apologized, and said, as if he didn't believe it, "You had a mastectomy?"
I've often heard other cancer patients' surprise from the apparent fact that "no one" notices their lost body parts. Perhaps some people are so busy with their thoughts that they really don't notice. I've come across people here at Susan's who are similarly surprised when no one notices their bodies changing.
What are your thoughts, feelings, and experiences regarding gaining and removing body parts?