The First Time I Saw You – A Memoir to my New Boob!

The first time I looked at you in the mirror, I stopped….stood still and gasped….you gave me quite a shock. This might sound like a contradiction in terms but you looked good, you did look amazing, (it really is phenomenal what can be done with plastic surgery these days) and I’m pleased you’re here rather than not here, for the reason that you’ve replaced cancer, but you look poorly, scarred, battered and bruised, swollen and dimply. This was the morning after you were created so it’s bound to take you some time to get comfortable in your new position, get used to your new place of residence. It will take a while for you to settle in, drop into place, to look like you fit, like you belong. I know you have taken the place of cancer but I still keep asking: “What are you doing here? Why did you have to show up? Who invited you? I didn’t ask for you to be part of me.”

I didn’t have freedom of choice when it came to you. It really is an odd feeling, and I can see it’s going to take some time for me to fully accept you being here. You’ve just suddenly appeared with not too much prior warning. I’ve not been given an awful lot of time to prepare for your arrival. And now that you’re here, I ask myself, would I ever have been prepared enough? How can you prepare for something like this until it’s actually happening and you’re experiencing the emotions that come with it?

Your counterpart before you looked more natural than you, looked different to you, felt different to you. I don’t mean to cause offence but she had more warmth, looked like she belonged. You feel numb, you feel cold, don’t have much heart and soul.

So, today, I shed a tear, a river of tears. Head in hands….I just sobbed. Sometimes I see you and feel alright about your presence, other times I see you and don’t want to see what’s staring me in the face, I can’t look at you without feeling choked up. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I scream!

There’s a discrepancy in my thoughts because I can’t get used to you being here yet, but I still feel a sense of wanting you to be ok and well and look less battered and bruised. In one breath I’m glad your predecessor has gone because of the first cancer cell she let in through the door, followed by its many mates that decided to join the sodding ‘cancer party’, uninvited. Why, I ask myself, do I feel that way about the old resident when she didn’t keep away those cells that tried to kill me? Why do I feel the way I do, feel such loyalty to her when she made an attempt to shorten my lovely life, tried to steal a young child’s mother, tried to take an older mother’s child, attempted to take over and control me. Why do I want my old boob back when she tried to control my life, my very existence?

And then in the next breath, I do want her back. You are not the same as her, not what I’ve been used to all these years. I mourn for the boob that once was. Am I grieving for the one I have lost? Maybe. I miss my old boob. I miss the symmetry. I miss the twin, the other half of a good pair.

Then I tell myself that change should be welcomed. I find myself saying that sometimes change is good, hard to get your head around at first, but good. It’s true to say, we soon learn to adapt, we learn to give appreciation. Out with the old, in with the new, which can sometimes be quite refreshing, right? And as a newbie on my body, in new territory, you will learn to fit in, you will get comfortable with your new surroundings. How long, though, will it take for ME to get used to you being around, to learn to adapt? I realise I have some acceptance work to do. And this is quite normal isn’t it?

I need to keep reminding myself why you’ve come, why you’re here to stay. Why you’ve been sent as a replacement. And the answer is clear in my mind. You’re here as a reminder that I AM ALIVE!

Leading up to this pivotal point, I can’t help feeling like I had lost my power, given it away, lost control of my existence. I must take back that power, I must own my thoughts which will make everything ok. And I do have the power to choose how I see things. We all do. How we live, how we think, how we feel, how we respond to outside influences, how we react to the happenings in our lives. So, I tell myself this….I AM powerful. I have the power to choose to embrace change. And in the best way I know how. So why the resistance? Because I am human and I need time to adjust to the changes that have been presented to me. I am allowed to resist. That’s totally alright too. But with my powerful mind, I just have to choose to look forward with joy and peace in my heart.

So, the simple fact of the matter is that I need to learn to love you because you have replaced bad with good. You’re a good egg! Yes, it’s evident, you are different. But you are not less. And different is ok. I will learn to embrace you because behind the scars and the bruising, it’s where cancer once lived and no longer does. Cancer is now gone! You, my new boob, may not be the original, but you’re ‘shiny and new’. I loved my shiny, new car when it arrived (although that didn’t come out of the showroom battered and dented) so it just may not be a love at first sight feeling with you. But it will come, I will feel the same way about you. Cancer didn’t get a chance to take my body and I will see you as a boob of honour for my courage, my bravery, a sign that I have overcome a fight, a battle…a battle that I have well and truly won!

So, the choice I now need to make is this….do I see you as an unfamiliar mound or do I see you as confirmation that I am strong, I am bold, I am awesome…..and I survived!

Cancer came along to teach me things, teach me strength, teach me a new found overcoming attitude I never thought I possessed. I’ve overcome adversity in life before but never like this. Nothing as challenging as this. Now cancer has gone and you have taken the place of the disease, I will choose to give thanks to you for being here.

So, I WILL get through this initial phase of not seeing you as being a part of me. I will adjust to my new body shape, but I think I need to take little steps of acceptance, one process at a time. And when I have taken those little incremental steps, I will see you as a survival boob. You saved my life, and your being here will tell a story of my courage.

This is where I remind myself of the conversation I had with your predecessor before she had to be taken away:

Me: “Dodgy Boob, I’m unhappy with you, you’ve made me sad and caused me a lot of grief these last few months.

Dodgy Boob: “I’m so sorry Abbie. I didn’t mean to.”

Me: “I didn’t ask you to give me this hassle, this pain. I used to like you, you were alright in my book before all of this. But you’ve betrayed me so now ya gotta go!”

Dodgy Boob: “I didn’t mean to let in that first unwanted nasty cancer cell. It just turned up uninvited and I didn’t have the strength to send it away. It was so persistent and insistent on staying. And then it kept bringing along its mates. There were so many of them and they totally overwhelmed me. Will you ever forgive me?”

Me: “Well….before you go, I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you. I guess it’ll be essential for me to move on. You still need to go though so I can concentrate on healing fully. But I suppose I will miss you. You have been good to me.”

Dodgy Boob: “Thank you. And again, I’m so sorry. Oh…and tell my replacement that it needs to look after you well.”

So….new boob, will you do that? Will you carry out what your predecessor has asked of you?

I am still here, living on this Earth. And if this battered, new mound I stare at in the mirror is to be part of my new life, I will learn to love you. Because you will heal, you will look like you belong. It may take a little time to adjust, it will certainly take strength of mind on my part. But I choose to view you through loving eyes.

In order to live a blissful and joyful life, that means loving everything about life including the ups and the downs, and includes loving everything about the person I am, the inside of me AND the outside of me. Because behind the bruises and the scars, my heart is beating, and my heart is still, if not even more so, full of love and gratitude. I am grateful for being a living being! And I will continue to affirm to myself….I am mentally strong! I am a whole woman and I am accepted just as I am, especially by the person in the mirror.