#51 "Thanks for the Mammaries....."

Tomorrow I go to the hospital at 6am. They run my IVs get me all set up and wheel me into surgery for 8am. It's about a 2-3 hour surgery and then I'll wake up in recovery which is where I'll stay for the rest of the day and the night.

All day today I have been wandering around, doing little things and mindlessly watching TV. Drinking my broth and eating lightly, my mom brought me some chicken and we had salad and chicken and watched a reno show. After that I stress ate a few pieces of sourdough toast. I was trying to keep my intake of food low today but toast has always made me feel better when I am super stressed. I'm trying to be calm but it's a simmering pot of crazy sauce.

I took some pictures of my boobs. For the before and after comparisons. I won't post them yet, but I will post some pictures of the recovery along the way. No one ever gets to see what it looks like, the drains and the scars and I'm not above posting that in the hopes that it would even help one person who is going through what I am. The uncertainty is the worst. Not knowing what I'll look like, what it will feel like. How will I be? Will they get all the cancer? Has it spread? Will it hurt? Will they have wifi when I get out? LOL. Serious questions.

Tonight I will take some gravol to force me to sleep. Melatonin won't cut it. But here's what I really think about it all as the sun sets on my last night with my boobs.

It's sad. I remember them when they first started growing. Mine weren't magnificently large or spectacularly nipplacious as some of my fellow classmates' were. They were average but grew to be a nice size and got noticed eventually. I remember one time in gym class climbing a rope and the whole class watching... as I got to the top....and then sliding down with my shirt around my head and my boobs out. It was horrifying. I hated them then. That was their first official public viewing. I'm sure some Kiwedin Cougars still remember the moment. I stormed out of the gym class and actually left the school for the day. Got in tons of shit for not telling anyone I left but whatever. My boobs were out. I had to leave.

Then there was the time that I had a birthday party at Wheelies and for a birthday present before at home my mom got me a few fancy bras. I didn't have the boobs to fill them out so I joked to my girlfriends and stuffed them with bunch of cotton balls. We took a picture, which is still at my father's house. Anyway I took the bra off and we went to the roller rink for a party. The boy I liked came up to ask me to skate with him and a few of the cotton balls had stuck to the inside of my shirt and fell out when I stood up and he laughed at me. I was so embarrassed I ran to the bathroom and stayed there much longer than I should've. Another time I hated my boobs.

The teenage years were pretty standard. I upgraded bras as needed and didn't pay too much attention to the "girls" until they started to ache every month around my period. We went on together for years like that, although I did dress them up and draw more attention to them as the years went on. I won the odd wet t-shirt contest... They received many compliments and I thought that they were pretty much a perfect pair. Not too much, but just enough to be enjoyable. Jogging wasn't a challenge, but I wasn't about to go braless without some sagging. They were just nice. I liked them. Didn't want bigger, and overall they were standard issue C cup boobs. My girls.

They came in really handy when I had the babies, Ari was tongue tied at birth so me and the boobs had to work extra hard to feed that little sweetie but we managed just fine for a year and I was grateful to them for the beautiful job they did making her immune system strong and her first year a bonding experience for us. I had a new respect for them after that.

When Madeleine came around 4 years later my boobs knew exactly what to do and I was able to pump enough milk to enjoy a wine night whenever I liked. Madeleine loved the boobs would always squeeze them and say "gooshie gooshie" even after she weened from breastfeeding. I think it's just this last year she's stopped putting her hand down my top to squeeze me. It was a comfort thing for her, such nice quiet time with mommy. She gets it now, but it was cute. She loved the boobs. They did her well. Such healthy shiny babies those boobs fed.

After I stopped breastfeeding Madeleine I fully expected them to become rocks in socks but they actually didn't look so bad. They weren't the bursting balloons of motherhood or the perky twenties tits but they were still nice and I'd dress them up and we had fun. No complaints in the sexytime department, or at the beach.

When the lump appeared they became instantly something totally different, they were scary and not sexual or fun, or givers of life or even things I wanted to look at when I was naked. They terrified me. Sexually, we didn't really invite them to the party anymore, they were there, but more like the bad guys that didn't follow the rules and had to sit on the sidelines because they reminded the rest of the team that we were currently losing. Elephants in the room.

Through chemo and poking and prodding and taking my shirt on and off and having them measured and assessed, they became something that I don't even see as a part of me. Every time I feel a pain or a sensation I worry about my life, every time I feel that lump I worry about cancer spreading. They are now an outward expression of cancer and I want their story to end.

I don't want to build new ones to take the place of my old ones. That would be impossible. The new ones would have no good stories to tell, they wouldn't have grown babies, they wouldn't really belong to me. They wouldn't even have nipples. I wouldn't have any sensation. They would be there for dresses and v necks and sexy time. But I don't need them for any of that anymore. I'd much rather have the scars because they are part of the story of my boobs. Part of the story of me as a young girl, young woman, mother and now cancer survivor (hopefully!).

Tomorrow I'll go into the surgery with them, I guess I'll say goodbye to them in my head and thank them for all the good times, for all they did for me, for how they made me feel like a woman, the fun we had together. And then they'll be gone and I hope and pray the cancer goes with them.

I'll wake up and I'll still be me. Just without them. I think it'll take some getting used to. I'll have to redefine myself again, but I did when I grew them and I did when I became a mom and I will now too. Everyday we redefine ourselves, sometimes in small ways we don't even recognize, but we repeat over and over - like a new habit; sometimes we are forced to redefine ourselves in big ways after something like a surgery or an amputation.

Either way, we keep moving forward everyday, redefining ourselves. Fighting for who we want to be, for our lives and to be happy.

Tomorrow is a big day, but so was that day at the Roller Rink. It's all about perspective, and I've still got lots of days ahead of me.

I end my last day with them grateful for a lifetime of bouncing fun, appreciation for what they did for my babies and for how they made me feel like a sexy beautiful person.

It's time to say"Ta Ta to my Tatas" and "Thanks for the Mammaries". We were great together, but I think I'll take it from here. I'll be OK without you.

I still have a lot of life to live so I need to get busy doing that.

See you on the flipside...or rather...flatside.

P.S.Thanks to everyone who is sending me prayers and thinking of me tomorrow. It means the world to me to know I'm not alone. All of your messages of positivity and encouragement are touching and inspiring. XOXO.