A test of grace

Well, next week is my mastectomy and I’m ready – emotionally, anyway. I still need to double check supplies and be sure I have everything that has been recommended to me, but at this point I’m just anxious to be on the other side of this surgery. All while fully aware that there is at least one more surgery awaiting me this fall to place the implants, and possibly another after that to fine tune the reconstruction.

But you know what? I’m going to be ok. None of this is life threatening. Annoying? Yes. Frustrating? Absolutely. Emotionally and physically painful? Yep, but after the lumpectomy I’m feeling more prepared for those parts too. Every once in a while some anger seeps in - anger that life continues to ask more of me: more strength, resilience, courage. And then that passes too, because I know that in this situation, anger is a waste of energy. And because I know THIS kind of cancer and THIS exact surgery is absolutely no match for me, just as it hasn’t been for the millions of women who have gone through this before me.

The most valuable lesson I will take from this experience is that the hardest part of being strong is acknowledging when you’re weak. 

However, the weakness I will feel after this surgery is the result of a choice I am making from strength. I am choosing to undergo this surgery, to be temporarily weak, so that I can be stronger on the other side for both myself and my family. (Please, please, please remind me of this when I am wallowing in recovery.)

The choice to have reconstruction, and the temporary weakness after, is also mine to make. While I have joked about the great new rack I will have when this is all over, it is actually the implants themselves that have been one of the hardest parts for me to accept. I finally realized that this is because what I haven’t wanted to accept is my diagnosis.

To this day, I still do not feel like I am a cancer patient - that I “have cancer”. I know this is technically inaccurate - that I am and I do – but all I’ve wanted, since I read that first biopsy report, is for this all to be over. For weeks I felt like having implants would never allow me to feel like it was over. They would be this unwelcome reminder of this annoying, frustrating and painful time in my life.

While I still feel some truth in this, I have taken the advice of many and started to spin this narrative around in my mind. I can allow the implants to remind me how little control I have over my life, how weak I’ve felt, and of the complex pain and trauma that being back in the medical system has drudged up post-Adelaide. Or I can view them as a trophy, a back-handed gift from the universe for all the shit I’ve survived.

I’m still here mother fuckers. New and improved.

Now, new tits are not the award I would have personally selected, but it’s the one I’m getting. So, I can resent them or make the most of them. Bring on the backless dresses.

Mostly though, I’m just kind of tired. I’m looking forward to the break the recovery from this surgery will provide me. It’ll suck and then it will be over and at the end of it all I will still be here. Stronger than ever, I suppose. Which really just means that my brain’s barometer for what is freak out worthy gets skewed even further.

And this is where my anxiety comes in. I am not anxious about the surgery or even the emotional and physical pain I might feel during recovery. No, my anxiety is self-focused.

I am anxious that it will take longer than necessary to recover (How long do I think is necessary, you ask? She shrugs in response).

Not that I will feel pain, but that I will beat myself up for letting the pain affect me (Do I think I’m superwoman? She shrugs again).

I worry that others will feel I am milking this journey or that resentment will grow if recovery takes longer than I feel it should (Stop shoulding yourself! Don’t worry what others think! Right, yeah, sure).

The true test moving forward will not be to my strength, but how much grace I grant myself.

My first step toward self-grace is allowing my dear friend, Bud, to write the blog for me next week as I recover. Look forward to some deep hitting thoughts from him and then I will plan on being back when it feels right.

Thank you all for the love and support. Your girl has got this.

But just in case: for those who have had mastectomies, what is something you wish someone had told you and is there a product you couldn’t live without?

ID: Miguel, Anessa, Kelly, and Jackson standing in front of the New York Red Bulls Major League Soccer team’s entrance tunnel before Miguel sang the national anthem at last Saturday’s match.