Love Your Boobies...

Well, yesterday was a bad, good day. Bad in that my mammogram came back bad and I had to get further testing.  It tends to happen to me every year. Not sure why, I guess I just have lumpy boobs...

Anyway, last year it was the left, this year it was the right.  Before that I had clean mammograms for awhile but this has happened before, a lot.  The need for further testing.  And it is one of those things one could easily dismiss since it happens often as “just being cautious” and the like.  But I would be a liar if I didn’t say that it is constantly on my mind.

I don’t worry per se but it is never far from my consciousness.  The resounding question:  “Do I have breast cancer this year?”  Looms large.

Yesterday was particularly awful because usually I just get an ultrasound and off I go.  Yesterday we started off with another mammogram, then another, then another, then still two more for a grand total of five.  Then the ultrasounds started.  First the technician then the doctor with furrowed brow.  The longer it dragged on the quicker my mind jumped to conclusions.  The longer it took the more I worried and fretted.

At one point I am laying on the table, waiting for whatever came next, I was not sure, and I thought, “I don’t want to lose my hair...”  I mean how vain can I be??  But that is what I thought, I was not ok losing my boobs either, I kind of like them, I mean even after two kids and breastfeeding, they could be so much worse.  Of all my body parts, my boobs are one thing that I kind of like...

In the face of an impending cancer diagnosis I was worrying about my hair.  Fuck, sometimes I really wonder about myself.  But that thought lead me to the following ones...

ME:

“I will be ok, I just don’t want to lose my hair...”

ALSO ME:

“You have no power in this situation, like at all...”

ME:

“Well, I know that but I just really do not want to lose my hair!”

ALSO ME:

“I would pray for your life, not your fucking hair!”

ME:

“Well, that is implied...I mean what good is hair if you are fucking dead?”

ALSO ME:

“Fair point...”

And it was then the still quietness I know only to be the presence of God in my life said...

“You are both powerless in all of this.  You might lose your hair, you might die, you might lose your boobs, you might get new ones, you might struggle to survive, you might not make it...”

Neither of the me’s present in that exam room had much to say after that...

I was powerless.  I could pray for outcomes but that was really a lot of folly.  How many women lay on tables like that and prayed to no avail?  How many women were faced with the powerlessness of their situation and lost?  How many women battle cancer every single day and are barely winning?

The absolute truth was there was nothing I could do except what I was currently doing.  And whatever result sprang from that doctor’s lips created my reality.  I had no power in the face of what I was facing. None.  And I don’t know about you but I really fucking hate being powerless.

But in that moment, I just accepted it and all the ways this whole deal could play out.  I just lay there and breathed and was grateful I was alive and I had my boobs, and they are a body part that I actually like.  I prayed for all the women who were in the exact same situation as me in that moment and I prayed that we would all find a way to accept how delicate and fragile we really are.  I prayed that we all find some ability to accept this and whatever may come when the doctor finally speaks...

I was blessed and lucky.  Benign cyst.  It is growing but there is nothing to be done about it now.  I can’t feel it and they are not concerned.  And just like that, the doc turned and left the exam room, I was told to get dressed and I was free to go. Like the condemned, just granted an unexpected but hoped for pardon.

I will tell you, I took extra time getting dressed.  I looked at myself as I did so.  Grateful that that appointment did not alter my body’s landscape permanently.  Grateful I get to keep the boobs I was born with, grateful I did not have to undergo the horrors of breast cancer recovery which, from what I hear, is sometimes only marginally better than dying from it.  Having parts of you poked and prodded then cut off and then reattached with your skin, fiber, sinew and flesh is not an easy thing to undergo.  All while fighting for your life.  It changes you...forever.

And I found this out yesterday when I was only on the very first step of that horrible journey.  The powers that be saw fit that that was as far as I went yesterday.  Next year, perhaps something different.  Perhaps a different body part, perhaps I never even make it to next year to undergo the mammogram/ultrasound shuffle.  The whole point is that none of us know.  We never get to know...

I put my clothes back on, hugged myself and boobies tightly and walked out a free woman again.  Only marginally worried about the “benign cyst” that remained lodged in me.  Trusting that the doctor with boobs of her own got it right.  That she wasn’t cavalier with her diagnosis and that testing next year will be the proving ground.  For now, there is nothing I can do except do the self exams and then enjoy what God gave me.

So if you have boobies, love them.  While they may not be big enough or the right shape or what you always wanted, they are fucking yours and a gift.  So many of our sisters’ bodies become a canvas that is carved and marred and I don’t know one woman who has been through the breast cancer ordeal that would not tell you she would like her old boobs back.  Not one.

And if you are a man that gets to appreciate our boobs, relish in your partners’ boobs.  Marvel at their beauty and her tenacity to live every single day fearing what it might be like to lose them someday.  And if you don’t have a partner, appreciate your former partner’s boobs, or your future partner’s boobs.  Sometimes I think you love them more than we do...and I honestly really appreciate that!

Perhaps yesterday was a close call. Perhaps it was just a wake up call.  Only time will tell...but I know that I lay there reminded of my acute powerlessness in this life.  So very little is up to me. I cannot will away cancer anymore than I can stop the hands of time and their constant etching on my body, mind and soul.  We just get this one life...and I think that is to teach us how very lucky we are to have any life at all.

Today I woke up almost in tears just because I am here and healthy and have decent boobs.  And they are mine.  All mine.  And I, like everyone else, have no idea how long I get to keep them and in what capacity.  But I can tell you the experience this year has made me even happier to be a woman.  And more grateful for the body I have been gifted with.  And I think, perhaps, a little less at war with how I think things should be.  And a little more grateful for my boobs and my life and medical insurance and early detection and doctor Weiss and her staff.  Me and my boobs live to fight another day...

Again...still.

In case you didn't know...