Just One Point

Yesterday I went to a workshop to learn about making money as a copywriter and I was so annoyed because everything the presenter told us was just based on her own experience. I don't think the information in one person's story is enough to make you an expert on a topic, even if that story is your own. This woman thinks it is. She came right out and told us so.

"Write the text for your own website," she instructed. "Then you can position yourself as a web-copy expert because you have already done it!"

It's probably not fair to use quotation marks. Those might not have been her actual words. But I like writing like it's dialogue. Or, in this case, monologue, because we all sat quiet while she made this proclamations. I, however, had plenty to say to my spouse when we met at Zolo for lunch afterward. (I am probably misquoting the following statement too, but it's okay because I am giving myself permission to do so.)

"I can't believe she thinks she's qualified to tell other people what to do! Things have worked out okay for her, sure, that could just as easily be the result of freak chance! Or, maybe she's just riding on her own overblown sense of self-confidence. That's not something you can pass on to someone else! Until you can, you shouldn't go around preaching that if others do everything just like you did that they'll end up happy! She is totally self-absorbed, speaking to the rest of us from a place of blind privilege! She needs to wake up and face the fact that other people have other experiences. She needs to realize that her viewpoint is not the only valid one!"

You can probably tell that toward the end of my tirade I am not really talking about her anymore...I am talking about myself.

I have been so lucky, at least as lucky as one can be when she needs to have a breast removed.

Because I've always been small-chested, I still look normal in clothes, even when I don't wear my Phyllis, faithful prosthesis. If I wear a sports-bra under a t-shirt, no one can even tell there's anything missing. I can even wear strapless dresses, if they are cut right. I almost bought one when I was shopping for something to wear to our wedding reception. I thought I looked pretty good.




Because my rib cage has a fortunate shape, curving noticeably out beneath my collarbone and dipping in at the center, my chest above where my breast used to be still looks relatively normal too.






Because I'm tall and relatively slender, my waistline does not exceed my bustline. I didn't even count this fact among my blessings until I read a blog comment from a writer who felt she had to wear her protheses every day, because without them she looked pregnant.




Because I've never quite filled out a "C" cup, my prosthesis is small and light. When I do feel like wearing it, I don't even notice any extra weight on that side, or extra pressure against my still-healing surgery-site.







I have to admit too that being raised a feminist, and having identified as a lesbian for the last 15 years also have an effect on my experience of breastlessness. Early on I started questioning the narrow scope of what is understood to be attractiveness in males and females. For most of my adult hood I've felt partly excused from those proscriptions because the people I was trying to attract didn't fit neatly into those categories either.

And now, to top it all off, I'm married. I've got this wonderful person in my life who already loves me for exactly who I am, who is as committed as I am to loving and accepting my asymetrical body, who never ever ever leads me to question whether or not I am attractive or acceptable. It's true, I still have some issues to work through in the areas of self-presentation and intimacy, but I don't have to work through them alone.

No wonder I am so gung-ho to vote against reconstruction! How would I feel if my remaining breast was a double D and it stretched out all my t-shirts unevenly if I didn't wear my falsie? What if my prosthetic wieghed as much as grapefruit and made me feel like I was leaning sideways when I walked? What if I had a big stomach and short legs? What if I'd been raised by a beauty queen and the man I loved read magazines with names like "Big Jugs." What if my chest looked caved in and hollow without breasts? What if I was all alone?

I think it's time I realized that my point of view is just one point. It isn't a line, it isn't a plane. It is the exact opposite of multi-dimensional, and nothing short of a multi-dimensional approach is going to help any of us understand the complicated interplay of personal and societal issues that inform women's decisions about reconstruction. It's an incredibly complicated process even those there are only really 3 core options to consider.

These are:

1. You can have the first step of your reconstruction surgery completed at the same time your breast is removed.

2. You can begin reconstruction surgery after your mastectomy has healed.

3. You can skip having reconstruction all together.

Each of these option comes with a fat packet of pros and cons, risks and benefits, advocates and critics. Don't let any one tell you that they know which one is best for you. Even if it's me.