When I made the promise to myself to chronicle my cancer experience, I knew it wouldn’t always be easy. This was the day of my surgery- possibly my first surgery, possibly my only surgery. Daughter was scared and began texting me soon after she found out I was awake, so I grabbed my phone, took a photo and sent it without looking to show her that I had made it just fine. She never wrote me back.
What I realized in a quiet conversation with her the next day was that she was terrified by my photo. Why? I wanted to know. I’m smiling- I remember! Apparently, I look nothing like myself. I look scary. I look sick. I’ve spent so much time telling her I’m ok that she believed me, and when I actually looked sick she got scared.
That’s just it. I’ve been telling everyone, “I have cancer; I’m fine. It’s small. It isn’t a big deal.”
I’ve been lying.
I’m not fine. It hurts. A lot. I’m nauseated from anesthesia. I’m tired because I’m not able to be comfortable long enough to sleep. I’m cranky. I want people to stop looking st me like I’m broken but I want them to take care of me. I’m really not at all a good person right now. This isn’t really like me and I couldn’t figure out why.
What I’ve finally realized is that it’s all coming from the fact that my surgery, which was supposed to be so kino it wasn’t going to be noticeable, became noticeable. I look different. It may not be easy for others to see in my clothes, but it’s easy for me. And boy is it easy to see out of my clothes.
Now, I’ve been a person who doesn’t even look at myself because I hate how I look so much as long as I can remember. So why should it even matter? Why do I care? I don’t have answers to these questions yet, all I have is fear. Anger. Frustration. The continued “what ifs” about the future of my breasts. So I’ll keep sitting here and opening up to this screen and trying as best I can to figure out why I feel all of these feelings and why I had to get something as stupid as cancer.
Elephants in the Room 
*hug* Right now, things sound really shitty. I’m so sorry you are having to go through this. I’ll be honest. I’m vain. Being good looking gets you a lot of special treatment, and while I don’t look at it as a contest and while there are a ton of gorgeous women in the world, I still enjoy the benefits of having a pretty face. My body isn’t perfect, but it is good enough. In complete honesty, I think you have a beautiful face too. Weight is something that part of our society cares about, but there are just as many people who think that fat ladies are sexy as hell. It makes sense that changes to your body that are out of your control and that represent something that hurts you are something you don’t like. I am chill about my surgery scars, but when I got Bells palsy and half my face stopped working, I was upset about it (although clearly less so after I was told that it wasn’t a stroke). I guess that my neurological damage is also a physical change that causes me pain, but I’m not going to touch that. I repress the upsetment and anger about that as hard as I fucking can, because there is no fixing it and (especially with my condition) that way lies madness. It is _way_ more healthy, I think, to be upset about the bad shit that happens to you. Also, I’m going to finally go to the gyn here, since I haven’t been since we moved. I don’t think it is entirely because of you, but I have to deal with at least some elements of reality and this is one of them. I hope your reality stops sucking so much soon.
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