Today, it's time to back fill.
1. Having no breasts is not as good as having two breasts, but it is a lot better than having just one breast.
There is something. . .pleasant about the symmetry I have now. With one, I still had all the maintenance requirements that may have looked normal to everyone else, but always felt to me inconvenient.
Now, I can add to my figure if I want to, but I don't have to wear any special garments up top if I don't want to. And since our party on May 22, I haven't.
2. While at Glenwood Springs, I was changing in the locker room when I noticed a woman in my same aisle. She was being very Korean about getting dressed. She seemed particularly pleased with her breasts, which I thought had been worked on. (An easy conclusion to reach: age shows all over a body, not just in those parts.)
Well. Whatever. Right? But I still had to get dressed myself and I wasn't about to move to a different aisle because I is what I is, baby. And I will confess to all of cyber-space and its readers that I wanted to see her reaction when she saw me.
There is not one iota of me that envied her, or wanted to look like her or, more importantly, that blamed her for looking as she did. I was not, I promise you, harboring the thought, "I've had work done on my breasts, too. Only it was to save my life."
Instead, it was more like, "I'm proud of my body, too. . ."
What kind of reaction would I get? Did I want? I can't say.
She looked. Terror flashed across her face--eyes widened, eyebrows furrowed, a silent gasp. Is this a way of describing surprise? And then: humility. She turned away and got dressed in just seconds and then got out of there.
3. Related point: If 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, a breastless torso could be a more common sight.
If we all knew what it looked like, we'd fear it less, wouldn't we?
And when it came time for that 1 out of 8 women to decide on treatment options, if there were less fear, maybe there would be more willingness to go ahead with removal instead of pursuing "breast conservation" with desperate optimism. And then maybe there's be fewer cases of Stage II patients getting lumpectomies only to end up being Stage IV patients a few years later.
People make their own choices, of course. Each patient will decide for herself and I will not ever call that decision wrong. But what I don't want to see happen that I'm sure happens a lot is the following: The zeal for pursuing all life-saving measures is hampered by a woman's fear of living without breasts.
Fear not. Life goes on. And I'll go Korean in all the locker rooms available to me now to prove it.
4. Related to this, Dr. Susan Love coined the term "slash, poison and burn" to describe removal, chemo and radiation.
Not helpful, Dr. Love.
It's what we have to do, you know. And making it sound so terrible doesn't make it easier for us to go through with it.
5. Advantages to being breastless:
- I can work out in complete comfort
- I can get dressed in under a minute--I seem to remember spending a lot of time adjusting and fiddling and getting everything to look right
- I was wearing a t-shirt outside on a cool day when a chilly breeze swept in and made me sprout goose-bumps. Chilly, but no worries!
6. At our pool, where I practice swimming, obviously I wear a bathing suit. Modest though my suit is, there is no disguising missing body parts.
It is a family-friendly place. It seems to me there are no oglers--men nor women--around. But, come on, people notice other people at a pool. Not in a critical way. But with a dose of evaluation? Yeah. Sure. Are you going to deny it?
I've made friendly acquaintances with most of the other parents. It is not that anyone has ever stared at me. But quite a few times, I've caught a glance and a look that, roughly translated, reads, "What's. . .going on. . .exactly. . .?"
After two weeks of this, I decided to be a little pro-active. As we talked, I'd find natural opportunities to include a story from this past year, or some other way to mention that I had cancer.
Without fail, their response: "Oh? What kind of cancer?"
And I say, with a genuine smile, because I think they are all so sweet to play dumb, "Breast cancer. That's why I have no breasts."
I go on to say that the treatment is all done, that it turned out to be a joyful, magnificent year, that we experienced so much love and so much of God's power--that it's all good.
With the air cleared, I'm getting to be good pool-friends with them.
7. But is it "all good"?
Well. It's mostly good. There are still moments of searing grief once in a while. Last night I came to the obvious realization--but one I don't think I'd been willing to deal with--that this is what my body will be like for the rest of my life here on Earth. That long after this past year is a distant memory, I will still have scars and not breasts.
I prayed with Bryan. And, specifically, I found myself telling God that if I can enjoy Him and experience Him as intimately and powerfully and. . .consistently as I have this past year during this trial, then it would make the loss bearable. Joyful, even. I would consider it a good trade.
Tonight, during our church service, God answered me with a promise: The pouring of His life into mine would be far greater than what was poured out of my body this year.
How great? I asked. 4 times? 10 times?
So great, He answered, that I would not have the terms to quantify it.
I don't know what this means, friends. But it's going to be fun to find out.
8. Finally, a Gemma story that I've smiled about for months, but have just now found the right post in which to share it:
You know how children make malapropisms not to be funny, but because they really think they are using the right word?
Well, Gemma thinks that nipples are called, "Nibbles."
Without realizing it, she amplified the cuteness of her mistake. She saw some guy with a six-pack of abs on a magazine cover at the store and said, "Look how many nibbles that man has."
Either two or eight more than I have, depending on how you count.
No comments:
Post a Comment