How Can I Go Through With This?

Facing a Double Mastectomy

Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash

Next excerpt from Breastless: I have stopped fighting the recommendation to have my breasts removed and start to face the cold, hard facts.

I text Anna.  She’s thousands of miles away in England, but trained as a surgical nurse:

“So what happens when I’m under anaesthetic; how am I breathing?

Are my eyes taped shut?

Do I make noises or am I out completely?

And do bodies flinch at the first incision?”

She calls immediately,

“Hi Emma, I’m here. Are you sure you want all the details? I’ll absolutely tell you, but I just want to check-in with you first. It’s not everyone that wants to know what goes on in there.

I wish I could come to the hospital and be with you until they put you out. I hate being so far away and unable to help. You know, when I took off my bra before bed last night, I stood full-frontal at the mirror and I tried to picture what I would look like without my breasts. God, it was awful. I’m sorry, maybe this isn’t what you need to hear…”

I interrupt,

“No Anna, you are helping. Hearing that you did that makes me feel less alone. I feel like I’m the only one who thinks this is barbaric and devastating. I have been hearing so many women saying they’d be rid of their breasts in a heartbeat, or “They’ve done their job; you don’t need them now”. I feel like a freak for being so attached, but they represent who I am, how I love; the external expression of my heart almost. Who will I be without them?!”

She listens. I cry. We talk.

As I soak in the bath that night before surgery, I catch sight of myself in the chrome fixture at the end of the tub. Head, shoulders, breasts nestled in soapy bubbles. How the hell can I do this? All I can think of is how different hugging my children will be. What will happen to that kind of heart-knowing that I feel in them? And sex, will I ever feel sexual again? Is this the end of feeling like a woman?

I am not having reconstructive surgery so I will be visibly different soon. It’s time to pre-emptively share, not hide it. I post on Facebook that I have cancer and am going for a double mastectomy tomorrow and I receive countless loving encouragements and virtual hugs. Another girlfriend from England calls in kindness.

I welcome these precious, heart-to-heart moments, but I can’t help wishing Roland and I were able to have these conversations. But we are beyond distant now. He is covering practical matters, isn’t sharing how he feels and I remain emotionally closed to him too. Both of us still coping in isolation.

Kate touchingly says, “Emma, I am so grateful that you have chosen to have the surgery. I’m sorry, I know how hard that is for you. I wouldn’t let myself plead with you to go through with it, although it was all I ever wanted to say. I would hate to lose you from my life and when I saw you were going ahead, I cried in gratitude and relief. Selfishly, I was overjoyed. So thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for going through with this. For all of us.”

And again it’s girlfriends that carry me through.

It finally lands for me that making this hopefully life-saving choice is not all about me and my life. It impacts others too. What’s more, I have worked hard to become the fiercely loving mother that I now know myself to be and I want my children to have me in their lives. I can do it for them.