A – Z of Breast Cancer: BREASTS & BRAS

Breast is not a word I often used, until now. It doesn’t make me blush in the same way that vulva might, but it does make me a wee bit squeamish. Like a lot of people I say boobs. I know this is a bit infantile but the alternative breasts has too much of an air of sanctimony about it. It suggests my boobs are something to be revered, respected and taken seriously. Boob is more fun.

Until my diagnosis I’d never really given my less than spectacular boobs/breasts much thought. They are fun when having sex, useful when feeding a baby, and essential for making your clothes drape (I’ve only just discovered this last one). If I were Jordan I would no doubt feel differently but I am a 34B and so will never have career boobs. So when the surgeon told me I had cancer and she would do a total mastectomy I thought, OK.... But can’t you take both?

I was told that this was not an option but despite numerous reassurances I still cannot but think of this remaining boob as the enemy, a time bomb waiting to go off. I kept thinking of Lady Macbeth (told you I was given to grandiosity) and those ‘murd’ring ministers’ at her breast. And I developed an unhealthy fascination for her ‘unsex me here’ speech. I know, I know, Lady Macbeth was not contemplating a mastectomy she was plotting foul murder but I couldn’t help wondering...

would having one breast would unsex me?

I do understand that some women would feel traumatised and ‘unsexed’ by the loss of such a defining part of the anatomy but, on balance, I felt sure that I could live without my boobs. They were small and past their best: I was no longer breast feeding and I was single again. They were, to all intents and purposes, surplus to requirement and they were potentially killing me. Off with the rotters.

One breast down

Before I had time to contemplate the potential psychological impact of being one breast down, the nurse suggested reconstruction and I immediately said yes. My reason was clear: I could not walk around my house with only one boob, others might tactfully ignore it like the proverbial elephant in the room but my ten year old would surely point out that one of my boobs was missing. A bit like that know-it-all child in The Emperor’s New Clothes. A little later, as the operation became more real to me, I started to worry that perhaps I was underestimating the psychological impact of having one boob. Being a confirmed neurotic I like to cover all opportunities for worry and so I found myself contemplating how I might end up perversely grieving over a boob I had never much cared for. I reckoned a missing boob could easily become something you start to obsess over and I felt I’d have enough to be getting on with without adding obsessional thoughts to my portfolio.

No laughing matter

I am not trying to trivialise the experience of having a breast removed. I do know that it is a big deal, and it doesn’t matter what age or what size you are. Whether you have large or small breasts you will have a lot of adjustments to make but I think it is worse for large breasted women because there is such an imbalance. And I also know that being an older woman doesn't mean it will be any less distressing. Why should it? After all, older ladies have been acquainted with their boobs for a lot longer than the rest of us. The bottom line is this: however distressing you find the idea of a mastectomy you will most likely say, take that boob, take the other one, take my arm too, just let me live.

B IS ALSO FOR BRAS

If you like lacy underwired balcony bras you are in for a gruelling time. I suggest you wrap them lovingly in scented tissue paper and hide them at the back of the wardrobe because your breast cancer means that lacy underwired balcony bras are a thing of the past. For a time anyway. In fact forget ordinary workaday bras too. You may not be wearing regular bras, lacy or otherwise, for quite some time.

Soft and loose

The breast care nurses will tell you to buy soft tops with no wiring - a bit like a sports bra but without the constriction. They will wisely advise you to buy a size bigger than you normally wear; take this advice. Your normal size bra will be too tight and will cut in to your now very delicate skin. I dutifully went out and bought these hideous ‘nuns’ bras’ as I came to think of them, then I put all my old bras into a box in the hope that they’d one day fit me again.

Queen of tragedy

Now, I hope this doesn’t sound too ‘tragedy queen’ but when I replay events from that time in my head one of the saddest images I see is of me surreptitiously slipping my bra into a hospital bin after the operation. I remember feeling small and silly and vain and hoped no one had noticed. If my life were in a biopic the director could make much use of that small scene as a metaphor for something or other.

Read more at http://breastcancercares.blogspot.com/