Jason enjoyed laughing with his grandma about the show, "The Office" which they both love. Both Aimee and Jason got to buy some new clothes. We all enjoyed Greek food, seafood, and Thai food. Jason and Aimee went out to the movies with Grandma while I saw my clients. And Geoff and I got to have good conversations with her. She left with a smaller bank account but her cup full of my family.
The topic of mastectomy without reconstruction is an ongoing theme in my life these days. I thoroughly explored that "sentenced2live" website with the photos. She's some woman. If you try to find photos of the result of this surgery online, you won't find anything with a face on it. She was determined to make that change and wrote that when she was taking those photos on the beach, the lifeguard drove around her several times trying to decide whether to tell her to put a shirt on or not!
Seeing her photos of before and immediately after the surgery along with her 4 years later on the beach were very empowering as well. I know I'm not going to be as beautiful, shapely or young as she is, but her photos gave me the thought that I might not be so hideous as I thought I'd be. And I've been posing in front of the mirror, lifting them up and covering them to see just what it will look like.
I don't want to go through any more surgeries so I thank you all for not trying to convince me to have reconstruction. My mom proposed the question: if Geoff died, G-d forbid, would I want to look good (have reconstruction) in order to attract another husband? I said, if he was gone, I'd rather live alone than remarry! And if I change my mind, I would hope that whoever I was attracted to would accept me as I am! And I do know someone who did find someone just like that...
Anyway, if I ever change my mind down the road, the reconstruction doesn't include silicone-filled bags inside your body. It includes a big surgery that would actually work much better since it includes using your own body to make fake breasts. And they use your belly fat! Wouldn't that be nice to get rid of?
But they also take skin from your sides and maybe your back and your belly - it can take 8-12 hours of surgery or more. It doesn't sound like the easiest thing to recover from and besides, you still have to get tatoos for nipples and still have completely lost any feeling and prevent yourself from being able to easily feel a recurrence if it ever happened. So no thanks.
I went to Horsnyders and got a camisole with cotton-pillow-fake-breasts. I also got arm sleeves to prevent Lympedema - to be worn after surgery. When I fully recover from the surgery, I'll go back there and get some real prostheses which my insurance will cover. Who knows if I'll wear them or what I'll eventually do. I never thought I'd wear a wig and look at me now. I've been wearing one all day for the past 3.
My hair's coming back in. I've got a 1/4 inch layer all over my head. My eyebrows are starting to come back in too. One day all this will be a memory. The end is coming soon. I just hope I don't mentally go back to my old self and instead bring what I've learned forward with me. It's a windy, but sunny day today (oh, maybe I just had allergies and not a cold!) and I look forward to completing my last chemo on Wednesday and starting the last difficult part of this whole experience.
My visualization cd is helping me prepare by visualizing those competent people who will help and assist in the surgery, seeing my body cooperate fully by hardly bleeding at all and recovering and healing quickly and easily. I'm reading a book called, "Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster" subtitled, "A Guide of Mind-Body Techniques" by Peggy Huddleston. It's giving me lots of new insights.
One of the new insights has to do with saying goodbye to this part of my body. I really understood what my breasts represented to me after reading this book while waiting in the car for Mom & the kids to shop. My breasts represent the part of me that gives and gives to others without thinking about what I need for myself. This also means they represent my difficulty in saying no and setting limits when I feel like I need to be there for someone else. They are very happy to be released from those obligations and I'm so ready to let those ways of being go. I'm exhausted and depleted from that stuff. I'm over it. I'm grateful that I can allow a body part to represent that for me because it's the ultimate in letting go rituals.
I appreciate having had the willingness to nurse Aimee until she was 3. I appreciate having a personality that is so able to be there so completely for others in a nurturing way. It's one of my strengths as a therapist. And I appreciate the recognition that part of my healing is to be there as completely for myself. And it's definitely a communication learning experience for me to be honest and say no and yet stay connected to people.
(My personality type on the Enneagram is #9 which you can read more about here. It's a fun system and you can learn more about your own type too. I use this system in my practice. If
you go there, let me know what you think your type is.)
Ok, on to cleaning off my desk and the last week that's the beginning of the end of this chapter of my life.
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