Sharon

I had showered one morning and went to put on my bra, and then I noticed there was like a little like dried liquid in my bra. And I was like, “What is that?” And I couldn't figure out what it was and I went about my day, or I went about my business. And when I went and put my bra on, I noticed that it was right where my nipple was. And I thought, “What?” And so, I immediately start googling, what is this? And, you know, the net said, it’s probably nothing, but you should probably go see your doctor. And I did. I made an appointment ASAP. That horrified me. And my doctor at the time thought that I was just hormonal. I was 52.  And she was right. I was very hormonal at that moment in my life. And so, she wasn't really too concerned about it, but she wanted me to have a mammogram, which I was going to do. And I just got busy. I'm a single mom. I have two kids, and I work full time. And I just kept putting it off. And then one week turned into two. One month turned into six. And I just never did it. I had a lot of other things that were going on in my life and they were distracting. But for this whole year from the first time, I noticed that I had a discharge, I went a whole year. I had discharge just about every day. And by the end of that year, it was actually quite significant. And I changed jobs and I got insurance with my job. I hadn't had insurance in the past, so this was really helpful. And I went to a doctor that I've seen off and on my whole life, my adult life. And I told her. And she was like, “I want you to get a mammogram, and I want to do an ultrasound.” And I'm like, “Yeah. It's probably time."

Well, my initial diagnosis I had a couple of days to mold around without any kind of appointments yet made. So, I did do some googling.  It was scary some of the stuff that you would find out there. And I can only do so much before I was done, and I had to stop reading because you're going to hear the horror stories. And you're going to hear all of that stuff, and I needed more positivity.

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And like I said, after a while, I was saturated. And I had all the information that I could absorb at that time.

Chemo was recommended by two different oncologists. And because the cancer was a fast-growing, aggressive cancer, I was all ready to do whatever was suggested. I figured they were the experts, and I was not. I know other women who have taken a much more proactive approach and have made different choices. I’m not advocating necessarily for chemo. It's tough. And I don't know that it's always the right choice, but it is the choice I made.

Well, I have had changes in my body other than the obvious mastectomy.  I developed plantar fasciitis, and that has been an ongoing thing for over a year now. And the oncologists, they won't link chemo to that yet, but I have talked with other women that have experienced that too. And so that's frustrating because my body doesn't really feel like its own anymore. And I told you I like to disguise exercise because I don't really like it, but walking I did. And I can't really walk without being in pain now. I do wear orthotics. I finally went to a podiatrist. But, so, those kinds of things, I feel like I'm too young to be dealing with this kind of stuff, having to wear orthotics and stuff like that. So that has impacted my body.   I do feel like my body has aged physically because I'm just not as strong as I was before. And it's a lot harder to gain that strength than it used to be.
 

Chemo was not fun. Oh, my god. The first one wasn't so bad. They gave you anti-nausea meds in your feed, so it's not like the movies where you're puking your guts out. But I didn't feel great.

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By number three, even the doctor I work for was noticing that it was taking me longer to recover. Number four, I got sick immediately. And my doctor had written me a note for a week off for my chemo, for my chemo weeks. And I kind of chuckled to myself. There's no way I was going to take a week off. But when four hit and I got sick right away, I thought, “Huh.” And when five and six came, I took that week off. I couldn't. I think I slept for 30 hours straight sometimes and still could not have the energy to sit up in my little rocking chair at the time. It was rough. It was rough.

One of the things that I worried about is when I would wake up after surgery do you just know? Do you just feel their absence? And that grief. I don't like grieving. I'm a chicken. I don't like feeling sad and grief stricken, and I was so worried that that's how I was going to feel. And so again, another person appeared in my life that was one of my daughter's friend's mom. She had gone through a double mastectomy as well. We were just barely acquainted, but we met at a coffee shop, and she told me what to expect. And I asked her, "What did you feel when you woke up?” I asked her that fearful question I had. “Did you just know, you felt their absence? And she goes, “You don't even notice, hon.” You don't even notice. And she was right. I didn't wake up and have this ginormous absence. You know this, I just didn't. I just was fine. It was done.

So, then I finished chemo in 2016, and I had my double mastectomy. And I had expanders placed at that time. And I took six weeks off from work. I was recovering from chemo as much as I was from the surgery. I was exhausted and started having the fills, which were not horrible. I've read online that they are very painful, and I think my plastic surgeon was very gentle with me. It wasn't a hardship at all. I never really, hardly felt anything. I will say having saline and expanders, they're hard as rocks. It's incredible. I had no idea. I'd go back to work, and I'd be like, “Feel this, feel this” to the gals. It's like touching a wall. It was really bizarre. So, then I had my exchange surgery in February of 2017. And here I am today.

So what's exchange surgery?

Exchange is where they take the expanders out. The expanders are like a balloon that they slowly fill with saline over a period, mine took about four months to do that. And then he takes the expanders out and he puts them in. I chose silicone implants, which are squishier. And so that's what the exchange surgery is. He replaced the saline expanders with nice silicone implants. And then it’s taken quite a while to heal and for them to kind of settle into a shape.

You know, this isn't about perky boobs. I mean, I use that as a bright spot to look forward to, and I shared that with a lot of people. You know, I'm going to have perky boobs. This is awesome. I've nursed two babies. I no longer had perky books, so, you know, that was kind of my bright spot and something to look forward to. But in those last days leading up to the mastectomy, I was like, “yikes.” Perky boobs do not replace what you had before. It just doesn't. And I would also like to add that people that say that you get a free boob job when you have reconstruction, I know what they're saying. But there was nothing free about this boob job I got. I paid a very high price for it in more ways than one. So, I hate that when people say that, “Well, you got a free boob job.” And you hear that a lot and it wasn't free.

And then it's taken quite a while to heal and for them to kind of settle into a shape. And I think he did a really nice job. I'm really happy with it. And I was not able to save my nipples. Some women can save their nipples. I could have saved one, but I didn't want to have one boob with a nipple and one without. They can do reconstruction with nipples too, and I chose not to do that. And I initially was going to do a 3D nipple tattoo, which are amazing. I went online and looked. You can't even tell. They are just phenomenal. And I've seen them live and in person since then. One thing about women with reconstructed breasts, we show everybody everything. And so I ended up decorating mine more with flowers and vines. I didn't do a 3D nipple. But I like what I did. I'm really happy with the overall look. There is a certain, certain detachment. They're mine but not mine. One reason I think why women who have had reconstruction are not as shy to show their breasts as we would have been prior to this experience. It's just kind of a disconnect. Like I said, they're mine but not mine.  I don't think I would do anything different than what I did. I still had to care for my kids. I still had to work. I still had to do all that. And there are other options for reconstruction, and they are, I think, harder to recover from. I’m pretty happy with the choices I made.

And I worked full time while I did chemo. I had to, except for during my chemo weeks, I would take off time for chemo and my work was awesome. My employers were understanding. I work in a dental office, and so the hygienist, the other assistants and the receptionists just took me under their wing. And they were amazing. They were so supportive. I'd come to work and, in my cubby, there'd be gifts and little things just letting me know that you they were thinking of me, loving me and supporting me. And I just was very well supported through the process. I can't imagine a woman having to do this by herself. It would be horrible.

Anybody who's gone through cancer now has to live with, am I going to get cancer again? And so,I don't want it to dictate my life. I don’t want that to be my main focus. Make each day count. It's too easy to get sucked into living life and paying bills and got to do this and got to do that. You've got to make time for joy, simple things like it were summertime. I didn't have any hair. I sat in the backyard where no one could see me. And a gentle breeze kind of danced across my scalp. I've never felt a breeze really dance across my scalp before because I have hair, right? It's a really cool feeling. And I was like, “Wow.” The little, tiny gifts like that, that I could find to be appreciative of helped a lot.

I went to kind of a dark place prior to having my mastectomy. I was very fearful and very—can't think of a great word, devastated. Of course, I was devastated. But a lot of fear about feeling like a lot of fear of, of all different origins. Fear of, like, will I be a woman and, you know, just stuff.

And, I-, you know, would speak to my higher power. And I just finally came up with the mantra of "Faith over fear." And I do recognize that a person can take themselves all by themselves to a really dark place. It doesn't necessarily have to be about what's going on in your life. And I do recognize that I did that. When I came up with the faith over fear, I also believe that that was divinely inspired. And I just decided to have faith that whatever happened was meant to be and pulled myself out of that darkness. And not—and that doesn't mean that I wasn't afraid still. I was. But I wasn't, just wasn't as consumed by it, I guess.

Talking with women who have gone before me has made all the difference in the world. I made it through cancer treatment OK because I felt like I had a goal and I was doing something. But the recovery is much more ambiguous. It's different for everybody. And I honestly thought that a few months after my mastectomy, I would be fine and back to normal. And I was really blindsided by the fact that I did not feel well. I had no energy. My strength was down to nothing. And my stamina was ridiculous. And I talked with other women and said to them my fears. And they told me, "No, don't be hard on yourself. It takes a couple of years to recover". I'm so grateful to hear that information. I was able to give myself some grace and to just chill out. I mean, of course, I want to feel great right now, but knowing that wasn't normal or, you know, not to expect that, made it much easier to recover.

And I would also like to add that people that say that you get a free breast, you get a free boob job when you have reconstruction, I know what they're saying. But it's like, there was nothing free about this boob job I got. I paid a very high price for it in more ways than one. So, I hate that when people say that, “Well, you got a free boob job.” And you hear that a lot and it wasn't free.

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They're not really thinking about what you're going through and the emotional impact that losing your breasts has on a woman. I mean, I wanted the cancer gone. I wanted it out of there. But still, it was, it was an emotional time. I actually had a friend who was a guy say something to me about, you know, “Where are you going to get a new rack?” or something like that. And I just, it, I looked at him, and I said, “How would you like it if you had cancer in your ball sack and you had to have those replaced?” He got really quiet. He didn't know what to say to that. But, I mean, honestly, you know, I don't actually fault people for that. They don't know. They don’t, you can't know what it feels like to lose your breasts unless you lose them. You just can't. And so, I am trying to educate people a little bit at a time, as gently as possible. I wasn't so gentle with the guy, but, you know, he was a guy so.