• Elizabeth

    4 min read

Where to begin…

this time last year I had my breasts removed..

I am 47 years old, and I had aesthetic flat surgery. It was a preventative surgery. I had been trying to remove my breasts since 2019, and as strange as that may seem, I am telling my story because when I was looking for someone in my situation, I couldn’t find anyone. So maybe my story will help someone someday

**I dont really know how to blog so forgive the primitive style. I will get better…

I didn’t know how much Cancer was going to affect my entire life. But when I was thinking about surgery so many factors came into play. My health, my body, my marriage, but mostly seeing what cancer does to someone over the course of 13 years, changed me

It’s crazy that I have to go so far back but to really explain why I am here now I have to.

When my mom was diagnosed I was living with my father. I was 13, she was 40. At the time, I didnt really know what was going on. But later I was told that she knew she had a lump but didnt go to the doctor, and by the time she had, it was bad. I don’t know if anyone ever told me a “stage”. She was living in another state and was getting treatment…. I did not get to see her during this time. By the time I saw her a year later she was in remission and had her breast removed and reconstructive surgery on the one breast. This was 1992 and the options were not great. I went to live with my mom at this time, and was involved for the rest of her process.

My mom was a private person. She didnt like to burden people with her problems. I remember asking her about her breast because she never would have just told me the details. I think I was 15. It sat much higher than her other breast, and I guess I was just curious. When she wore sleeveless tops in the summer her armpit was very hollowed on surgery side compared to the other.  I think I asked her what her boob looked like. She said they had taken skin from her inner thigh crease to create an areola (the skin is darker) and her armpit was hollow because they took all her lymph nodes out from that area to stop the spread of cancer. I asked if I could see it. So she showed me. It was a boob like shape, scars all around the breast like stitches, the areola was a different texture, then the nipple looked like someone took a ball of white skin folded it up and put it the middle. It didn’t look natural by any means. I understand why she had it. But we never did have an actual conversation about her feelings about it.

After almost 5 years of remission her cancer came back, and it spread. She had a bone marrow transplant and it almost killed her. She lost all her hair, got very thin. And after a long recovery she went back to work and life. She was cancer free for years after that… I moved out when I was 18, and I tried to visit as often as I could but had moved 6 hours away. When I was 22 we got the terrible news that her cancer had returned and this time, everywhere…. She was putting on a brave face for everyone but she was scared. Her husband who was with her during all of it, left her because she wasn’t performing her wifely duties anymore. Yes a POS, but thats another story. The reason it is relevant is because my mother needed help financially so I moved back in with her. She had started radiation but through all the stress of divorce, cancer and finances she acquired another disease, dermatomyositis which cause inflammation and rashes all over her body.  Her face swelled up like a balloon, she was red and her eyes were almost swollen shut. She started a steroid that helped the inflammation but she also started growing fuzz all over her face. I started to go to all her dr appts with her and was there when she found out the cancer was in her stomach and in her brain. And while radiation could slow down the growth, the final result was inevitable. She just bent her head down when she heard the news. I could tell she felt defeated. She had been dealing with cancer for so long. At this time it was the 3rd time it had returned in 10 years time. I was now 24. Her Husband had left her and now she didnt want to fight anymore. She said no more treatments, and with that she was sent home to start hospice care. We have never had a lot of money in our family. I needed to work full time or I would be out on the street. So my mom and her sisters and her mother made the decision for her to live with her sister til the end.

I will always be sad I couldn’t financially care for her. But I was young and a mess. I still tried to help however I could. I helped have a garage sale so we could make some money for the move. I remember thinking how brave she was to sell all her things knowing it was because was nearing the end of her life. What a thing to do. When you know it really is the definitive end to your mortal life. She didn’t need it anymore; The couch, the lamps, the books. With that her final chapter began…

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