Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post): We are three days away from chop chop aka my double mastectomy surgery. The anxiety is starting to set in. HELLO FEELINGS. I had my pre-surgery COVID test this morning and a nurse called me this past Friday to go over pre-surgery questions. Looks like I am just about ready to go under the knife, or at least legally ready. Not sure about emotionally. How does one prepare for a surgery like this? Is it even possible?
ALSO! My hair is growing back! I have little peach fuzzies on my head and I can see nubs growing in on my eyelash line. Yay hair!
Sidenote: A sweet friend of mine created a meal train to support me after surgery. If this interests you, you can click here to sign up.
TO THE LONG VERSION!
Growing up, my sister and I were obsessed with this online game called Neopets. If you’re reading this and you’re under the age of 30, you might have been equally obsessed or at least played. This game was HUGE in the early 2000’s, so huge that McDonalds had Neopets toys in their kid’s meals. Neopets is basically this virtual game with pets and an online universe to play in. That is overly simplified, but you get the gist.
I think ‘obsession’ is the perfect word to describe how my sister and I felt about this game. We were so obsessed with playing that one time my mom told us we were grounded from playing Neopets and we protested with signs on our doors. SIGNS. WE PROTESTED IN OUR OWN HOME. I am not sure if my mom found this witty, inspiring, or just really terrible. I will have to ask her. But our passion for this virtual game ran deep. It is how we learned HTML coding. It was how we learned the very basics of graphic design by using Microsoft Paint and a scanner to manipulate images. I mean, it was not all educational, but we took some interesting life skills out of it.
There was this game called Tiki Tak Tombola. Everyone loves the Tiki Tack Tombola! It is basically a raffle and you can play once a day. Sometimes you might be awarded prizes or Neopoints (Neopets currency) or sometimes nothing at all. Sometimes if you pulled a losing ticket, you would be awarded a booby prize. Those prizes were like bottles of sand or gross food. There is only 20% chance of getting a winning ticket, so let’s just say that bottles of sand were plentiful and worthless.
I was doing dishes in the kitchen when that memory popped into my brain and I started laughing…. and then crying. My booby prize for having breast cancer is having my breasts removed. Luck of the draw. I thought the pun was punny and unlike bottles of sand, this surgery has purpose and worth, but it is an awful fucking outcome of something I never asked for. Not like anyone asks for cancer or mutated genes anyways.
I keep finding myself doing strange rituals with my boobs. I note moments when it is the last time I am doing an activity with my boobs. Last time getting groceries with my boobs. Last time hugging a friend with my boobs. Last time putting on a sports bra with my boobs. Last time nipping out in public. I am well aware that I will have reconstruction, but it is so far away and they will never be the same. They won’t have sensation. They won’t have nipples. I will never be able to breast feed. They will be just little bags of fat created from my stomach, hanging off my body for aesthetic purposes. They will be reminders of the destruction my body is capable of and a reminder that the threat continues to lurk in my DNA. The war will never end in my body, but there will be breaks and I so need a fucking break.
I like my boobs. They are derpy and I have learned to live with them most of my life. One is bigger than the other. I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of losing them, that there will be a day very soon that I will look down and not be annoyed by them pressing up against the buttons of my blouse, threatening to expose themselves and flash a stranger. Soon, blouses will not fit right because there is nothing there. It seems like an emotional mindfuck and a dramatic way to remind myself and everyone around me that I am a cancer patient. I cannot remove that identity, but I can disguise it if I want.
Despite the shittiness of this impending doom of a situation, I do have a couple things I am looking forward to about this surgery, believe it or not. I am excited to know what it is like to run without boobs and not invest in bras for a year (unless I want to disguise my flat chest or give some sort of structure to outfits.) I wonder if I will run faster? What will it feel like to not feel my chest anymore? Should I get a dope chest piece done? Solves the painful needle problem!
For now, I am trying to be intentional and take in the final moments with my ticking time bombs. I took them for their last run this morning and we went to Body Pump for the last time yesterday. I feel so sentimental.
I have been pushing myself to the extreme to see where I stand athletically. I went to Body Pump TWICE this weekend back-to-back and I went up Badger Mountain on the hard one mile side this morning. The fact I did all of that over the weekend is a good sign. Climbing Badger was challenging, and I had to stop once since I felt like I was a little queasy from the heat, but to my surprise I made it and I was not as slow as I had anticipated. I ran portions of the two mile side down, but struggled to maintain because the neuropathy in my feet is so bad. Running and not being able to feel your feet or knees is AWFUL. It felt like there were little weights on my knees and ankles. It took way more mental strength to encourage my body to lift each leg in motion. Pump was a fucking delight. I love weight lifting and I cannot wait until I get cleared for lifting after surgery.
Exercising has been my therapy for the last couple of years. It has kept me sane and it has given me new goals to strive for. I tried to maintain some sort of exercise during chemo. Some weeks were easier than others. I just have to remind myself that if I can do 8 weeks of red devil chemo, and barely exercise, I can do 6 weeks of post-surgery healing.
I want to wrap this up for the day so I can have more to report back on, but my hair is growing back! Similar to the order of how I lost my hair (my head and my pubic hair followed by everything else), it would appear that is the same order it is returning. My head hair cracks me up. I literally look like the creepy doll thing from Toy Story, minus the fact I do have both of my eyes still. I am just a misunderstood toy.
Today’s song lyrics of the day are brought to you by Flux Pavillion.
“I cannot hold you anymore
So am I next to close the door?
madisonhatescancer 