The Mourning After... and Before

Well, the mourning has begun... finally.

The first time I cried about any of this was before receiving my diagnosis. I had done enough research to be fairly positive about what I had and what the general prognosis was. And I cried.

The funny thing is, I didn't really cry again about it because I immediately saw my oncologist and started chemotherapy. Maybe it confused a lot of people that I wasn't more upset about it than I was. But, I felt pro-active, which made me feel powerful. It's hard to be sad when you feel that powerful.

Within a few weeks of starting the chemo, I saw improvements in my symptoms. That, in turn, led me to feel even better about everything I was doing. So, again, it was hard to be upset.

But, now the chemo is behind me and what faces me now is surgery. I have a new thing to deal with in surgery. I saw my plastic surgeon this morning for a pre-operative meeting. The purpose of that meeting was to go through everything I need to know about the surgery: what to expect, what steps I need to take prior to surgery, the risks of surgery, and what would happen after surgery.

As part of that, I asked to see pictures of what I would like like right after surgery and after the reconstruction was complete. I'll admit the post-surgery pictures are hard to take. As women, our breasts serve two purposes:

• Sexual
• Nourishment

After surgery there will be no breasts or nipples. On the left side, I will likely have a straight incision line across the middle of my chest. On the right side, I'll have something similar, but I'll also have a bit of a mound there where the expander will be placed. As the expander gets filled (to stretch out my skin), it may become misshapen. It's not intended to look like a real breast. It's just there to stretch out the skin to make room for the implant.

Seeing those pictures was really hard because I know that in a few short weeks, that's how I will look. Whether you look at it from the sexual side or the nourishment side, my breasts will not be able to serve either purpose. And frankly, after surgery, they're ugly. It may be temporary, but it's still something I have to face.

Generally, women have a hard time liking their bodies. Blame it on the media, blame it on fashion, blame it on celebrity, blame it on shallowness... whatever. It's something that is an intrinsic part of being a woman. We are inundated with images of "beauty" that contain standards that are nearly impossible to achieve or maintain. And we constantly compare ourselves, and since most women can't look like that, we find that we usually don't compare favorably.

The size, shape, color, perkiness, etc., of our breasts is definitely part of that self-analysis. So, it's hard knowing that I am going to lose my breasts and they are going to be replaced, at least temporarily, with something that fails miserably in the comparison. You may think that's shallow, but it's something I have to deal with nonetheless.

Please believe me that intellectually, I am grateful that all I will have lost through this process is my hair and my breasts, both temporarily. Technically, the breasts are a permanent loss with a fascimile replacement that will serve the sexual role without ever serving the nourishment role. That is also part of mourning, by the way. I would still like to have a child. If I am able to do that, I will not ever be able to feed them with my own milk. While a lot of women choose not do that anyway, it's not a choice I can make.

At first, I thought this need to replace my breasts was because I am single and I didn't want to deal with my self-consciousness at trying to start a relationship without breasts. But, as I'm facing this, I realize that it has nothing to do with whether or not you are in a relationship. It's something that every woman has to go through. Some choose reconstruction, some don't. Some get reconstruction of the breasts but don't bother with nipple reconstruction. It's a personal choice for each woman based on her own desires, needs, and comfort. But, every woman goes through the mourning process. Every woman has to deal with that, regardless of what she chooses.

So, I've begun mourning. I began mourning almost the second I laid eyes on those pictures, as that's when it became a reality for me. I didn't want to lose it in my doctor's office, so I managed to hold it at bay long enough to get out of there. I didn't shove it all the way down; I just held it at arm's length. I wanted to mourn. I wanted to feel that sadness, because I know that in feeling it, it helps me accept it. It helps me deal with and face what's to come, so that when it does happen, I'm better prepared. I managed to get out of my doctor's office, but I couldn't quite make it to my car. As I walked through the parking lot, the tears started streaming down my face. When I got in my car, I just sat there, crying, mourning, accepting.

I'm not done mourning, but I have to live my life in spite of it. So, I plan to give myself time each day to sit with it, feel it, accept it and mourn it. And that will make it possible for me to live the rest of my day with the positive outlook that I hold precious to me like a life preserver in the sea of my cancer.