Category Archives: Bumpboobs

What I want

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Just got back from a barbeque with friends. It was a lovely evening – filled with burgers and flames and salads and strawberries and cards and easy conversation. Ulrike made a sponge birthday cake, which Darren carried out with the candles lit. Zsolt stole chips from my plate while patting my hand. Laura impersonated a boxer with incredible accuracy, and I finally met Gareth long enough to chat.

It was a great evening. Good friends make for great evenings. And backyards – one day Zsolt and I will have a backyard with our own little vegetable patch (or herb garden) and we’ll invite friends round to enjoy a twilight meal.  Won’t that be wonderful?

Tomorrow I visit my surgeon’s clinic and discuss my pathology results. I’m throwing bombs and hoping for the best. If you don’t ask for the best, you’ll never get it – so I’m asking, telling, shouting and praying for the very best news possible. Safe margins and good news. That’s what I want.

Mastectomy scar

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An alien has landed on my chest. It’s taken over the place where my breast once lived, and is lying there flat as a beached jelly fish with a red, thin scar through the middle. Or so it seems.


About fifteen minutes ago a nurse removed the bandage and paper stitches from my wound. Bit by bit the sticky papers were gently peeled off. After several minutes of wincing and looking away, she finally leaned back. ‘All clear, it’s done.’

I waited till the nurse left before looking. With Zsolt holding my hand and mom on standby with a big cup of tea – we all looked down together.

Overall this could be worse. One: I could still have the cancer in my body. Two: I could have Frankenstein stitches. Three: it could have been infected, or swollen, or just plain ugly.

Instead it is a clean wound that is healing. ‘Fabulous’ was the nurse’s word. ‘Tidy’ would be mine. Fabulous seems a bit of an overstatement. Shopping in Iceland would be fabulous, eating Pizza on the roof of Jasper Pizza Place would be fabulous, spending the day at that spa in Kanata – fabulous.

It looks like an alien breast . . . the same way movie aliens have no hair, my right breast has no nipple  and no curve either. It’s been ironed flat, though a small bit of soft tissue is left behind (probably in case I decide to have reconstruction). There’s a horizontal scar running across the right side of my chest, like a puppet’s mouth . . . any moment it’ll start talking.

First reactions – Grief. Loss. And my poor left breast looks quite alone, somehow it’s also become more strange to me. Neither side seems to belong, not like they once did. But time should maks things easier. Sooner than later I’ll look down and not think twice. Hmm, I like that rhyme: It will be nice to not think twice.

A cancer-free boob. That’s a first in regards to birthday presents.

Birthday girl

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Today is my birthday. I am now 28 years old.

And ten years ago I was turning 18, running off to the bars in Hull and having a great time with my friends. It was goodbye fake IDs (in Quebec) and hello all night dancing.  But even then I said to myself, ‘Eighteen? Man, I’m getting older.’

But today I don’t feel older. I feel like myself, same as yesterday with a pinch more experience, and while there are a few lines on my face that weren’t there ten years ago, getting older is welcomed, very welcomed. Every birthday is a gift.

Anyhow today I’m 28 years old, which is still very young and still oh-so-fresh, and hopefully that feeling never fades. I look forward to many more birthdays and many more breakfasts in beds and many more outings with all night dancing.

🙂 So that’s good news. More good news – my bandages are coming off. Okay, honestly I’m scared for this. Scared to have the sticky sides pull against my skin – scared at the idea that it might reopen my healing scar – scared at what I’ll see after the coverings have been removed.

It’s a big day in more ways than one.  A big day for me.