Life post mastectomy

A dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have one of her breasts removed. Her journey to being free of cancer was difficult and traumatic. She went through it like the fighter she is and has emerged on the other side, cancer free but without one breast. She didn’t realise how it would affect her, she says, in retrospect.

“I never realised how intrinsic my breasts were to how I see myself,” she said sometime later, when she was contemplating reconstructive surgery. She had been through the hair loss that chemotherapy brings and the associated shift in self-image. The hair grew back, very different in texture from what it had previously been. But the incision on her chest was a constant reminder of something missing, a part of her body gone. There was a constant sense of imbalance, she says, and the healing process had to go beyond the body. The most difficult journey for her was accepting her own body after the removal of the breast.

The first time her husband saw her body, post mastectomy was something that is seared in her brain. He was very careful, she says, not to react negatively. She’s stayed covered up on the chest area with him after that. She feels unattractive, even though the rest of her is slowly coming back to the loveliness she was before the cancer ravaged her. So much of their relationship had been about the sensual, and she knew that the scar was something that had changed her body for her husband. He would never see her in the same way again. It did terrible things to her self-esteem, the loss of one breast. So much of being womanly is associated with one’s breasts. “Forget him finding me attractive,” she said, her voice trembling on the quiet edge of despair, “I don’t find me attractive any more. I look in the mirror and see myself, clothed or naked and feel incomplete.” It broke my heart to hear her.

But she’s a fighter, she’s reaching out and grabbing life by the horns, reclaiming it. As for feeling sexy again, that will be a journey she needs to set out on, step by step. Right now, though, as she says, “I’m just glad to have survived and to be cancer free.” She’s counting her blessings. There is reconstructive surgery she’s opted for. She could have got it done immediately with the removal but she didn’t want it done then. She assumed that wearing a prosthetic breast under her bra would be enough. Now she wants reconstructive surgery.

The breast has always been an erogenous zone for most couples. The loss of a breast can affect a sexual relationship in a way the partners couldn’t possibly imagine before the surgery. Counselling can definitely help, as can being open and communicative with each other about the issue. And of course, great lingerie is always a woman’s best friend in the bedroom. There’s always prosthetics and breast reconstructive surgery. And the knowledge that one has battled cancer and won, and that the other battles too would be fought and won.

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