My new boobs are two years old. Perky for life! I’d like to start to celebrate them a bit more. Because so far they’ve been a right pain in the arse. Or chest.
I found out when I was 22. Right around the same time period as the last post.
I’d been surrounded by the effects of breast cancer a lot. Too much. A very close family friend had stayed on our sofa every day while she underwent chemo. My family on my mum's side had a lot of it going on. My Gran died of it. And then we found out it was genetic, and that my mum carried the BRCA2 mutation. So I got tested. I was about 22. When I got the results I felt really numb.
And then I cried. A lot. Especially when I was drunk. I felt like every cell in my body was letting me down.
I always knew I’d have the prophylactic mastectomy. There are different options to deal with the different risks. The defective gene means you carry a lifetime risk of around 80% for breast cancer and 25% for ovarian cancer. The ovarian is nasty as there’s no screening for it. Although there are apparently blood tests you can do to screen now but they aren’t routine yet.
Some people just have their ovaries out and that does reduce the breast cancer risk somewhat too. But for me the right options seemed to be the mastectomy and then later on the oopherectomy. COOL NAME HUH?! But.
I will have my ovaries out but I’m not ready for that yet.
Honestly? I am really broody even though I am in no place to support another child. Madness isn’t it? Is it the prospect of losing the ability to be a mother again that makes me want it? Maybe. I don’t have a job, a boyfriend, or my own home.
Realistically I am so not ready physically or mentally to undergo any more surgery.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was going to waltz in and out and be running again in no time. But it all went a bit to shit.
I stopped drinking a month before the surgery. Yay me! But maybe the timing had something to do with it. I’d used and abused drink and drugs to keep the severe anxiety I really felt under control. And when the cuts in my chest were made it’s like it cut through the barrier that I’d used physically to suppress the trauma of my life up to that point. In the time period leading up to quitting drink I had been at a very low low. I felt worthless, and full of shame and need and want that other people didn’t seem to have. I mean, I’m sure people did but that wasn’t the side I saw. I felt so alone.
My friends and my boyfriend did their absolute very best to help me through the last couple of years but it was hell - suppressed trauma being released is not a pretty thing At All. My relationship was one of the casualties of all of this. But I do understand why. Some things perhaps aren’t meant to be. And maybe a lifelong friendship will be worth more in the long run.
But I have felt like a failure for my chronic health (mental and physical) problems and that’s annoying.
Where do other people find the strength to be happy and proud of who they are? Are they perfect and I’m not? Or are there some techniques they use to overlook their flaws? Or is it something else? I’m still searching for the answer to that. So Happy Birthday, Tits. Have a better year, ok?
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