surgery 

I am having a double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction tomorrow, Wednesday, April 17. I feel like I have been waiting for this day for so long but it’s really only been a little over a month since my diagnosis. It’s a big surgery where all of my breast tissue will be removed and I will have expanders placed behind my pectoral muscles until my implants are placed after chemotherapy. It takes a lot out of me not to just keep writing about the medical procedure that will be taking place – the risks, the options, the gory details.

I started this whole blog/IG account to be vulnerable and I’m starting to realize that’s really hard. Truly being vulnerable isn’t just about sharing the timeline of events and dramatic details but it’s mostly about the raw emotional journey, which I have a hard time expressing on paper.

Writing is a big part of my career. I can make a dull cashmere blend sweater sound like the most luscious piece of clothing in a pitch. I can draft quotes for executives. I can write enough fluff about a mediocre ad campaign to yield an entire press release.

But writing about my feelings and about my life is really difficult for me. I like to explain everything in an orderly fashion and give an exact play by play. Personal writing becomes this type of word vomit for me; blurting everything out so fast that I have to catch my metaphorical breath when I’m done. David says I don’t realize how impactful some of the things that have happened to me are and that I write these circumstances with such simplicity – like “yes, that happened in the hospital where your brother died but how did they make you feel?” I just want to get the who, what, where and when down but have a hard time expressing the how. How does it all make me feel?

So this post will be shorter than the earlier ones because I couldn’t possibly write two pages just about my feelings – I’m not that important in the grand scheme of things and I don’t want to bore you if I haven’t already. God, this is so me, me, me! And I’m likely not the first person you know who is having this procedure so this isn’t anything groundbreaking.

But this is huge for me and tomorrow feels like the first day of the rest of my life without cancer (pre-chemo) and today is the last day of my life with my natural body and I am going to share how I feel so that I can have peace of mind that I was honest and vulnerable when I promised myself I would.    

I’ll start with the first concern. I don’t know what I’m going to feel like when I wake up and that frightens me. I’ve heard from a woman I’ve been chatting with who had the surgery last year that it’s less about pain and more about being uncomfortable. I will have four drains coming from my incisions and that certainly sounds awful and plain weird. Since I will lose all feeling in my breasts, will that hurt? It makes me think of that dreadful sensation when your foot falls asleep when you sit on it too long. I hate that!

I’m scared of being scared of my body. One of my biggest fears is the first time I see myself without bandages. Will I look like a butchered body? Will I find myself attractive? Will I ever feel comfortable touching my chest again and will I ever want David to touch me again? These are just some of the questions that I’m not able to answer.

It’s all pretty ironic because it was only a few months ago that I was feeling the happiest I’ve ever felt with my body – crazy I may have already had cancer. I was at peak fitness – Tracy Anderson every morning and Soul Cycle on the weekends with a few Higher Dose sessions in between. We did dry January and I slept like a baby every night and was cooking regularly. Now, I’m a day away from losing my breasts (and what feels like my womanhood, more on that later) and I actually feel the most unhappy with my body. I’m not drinking but I’m bloated and crampy from the egg retrieval and haven’t been allowed to work out for the past two weeks. On top of that, I avoid touching my left breast at all costs because I feel the tumor and that just reminds me that I have cancer.

My womanhood. Are breasts really the symbol of womanhood? I guess you could say so since they are the vehicle for women to feed their babies. That’s something I will never be able to do; God willing we are able to have babies at all. I have to be honest, I was not a breastfed child so for some reason not being able to breastfeed does not keep me up at night… So if my personal calculations are correct based on the above equation – I will not lose my womanhood after all.

But will I feel feminine? Again, can’t answer this. I am already small chested (no cleavage here) so I should be more accepting to the fact that before my expanders are fully expanded I will be completely flat-chested. The thought of literally being flat as a board is terrifying because my boobs make me feminine, don’t they? No, they don’t. I have some curves and I have a butt. I’m just scared of my body taking on a new form that isn’t “normal.” But it will be temporary. New catchphrase: same Mack, new rack. Anyway, David is a butt guy.

Since I’m always trying to find the positive, here are some wins. First, I may never have to wear a wire bra again! Supposedly it’s dangerous because if the wire becomes exposed, I wouldn’t feel it and it could puncture my skin, cause irritation, etc. I might have a bra burning party. Bralettes for life.

Second, I have doctor’s orders to never do a plank again. No pectoral muscle exercises to be exact – no planks, push-ups, pull-ups, bench presses (not in my wheel house anyway). While I’m trying to love this, I actually hate it because now I have to rethink my entire workout regimen when I’m up and running again.  

In summary, I am excited, I am nervous, I am scared but mostly I am relieved that this mass of cancer will hopefully be out of my body by the end of the day tomorrow. It might all be in my head but I feel like my tumor has grown significantly and that worries the shit out of me – and that’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been.