Jenny's inspirational message
I have had a bilateral mastectomy and for a while was confused about how I felt.
Periods of depression are normal and expected...and treatable.
When I was going through chemo and ray treatment I made myself stand naked in
front of the mirror one day to really look at myself. I was bald, I was scarred,
I was burnt, and at that time had one mastectomy - what a lopsided sight, how
could anyone love this. The strangest thing was that I saw past my reflection in
the mirror - I wasn't looking at myself anymore, I was looking inside myself and
for the first time in my life I was at ease with myself. It was almost like a
sense of rebirth, I had nothing to hide behind anymore, I was completely exposed
inside and out. I found there was more to how I felt as a woman, as a person,
than simply what was visible on the outside.
I do wear prosthesis (Bill and Ben) and on the outside have the contours of a
'normal' woman and I have become so comfortable in wearing them that I forget
they are not real breasts. But when I take them off at night I trace the lines
of my scars and think about the changes that have happened in my life since, the
people I've met, the treatment I've survived and the depth of my being that I've
come to understand. They are not bad scars. They don't change the fact that I'm
a woman and a mother - nothing can ever, ever take that away from me.
I look at cancer as a part of my path in life rather than as an obstacle to get
over or past. Yes, it's been a major event in my life, like leaving school, like
my marriage, like the birth of each of my children. These events have sent me in
changing directions throughout my life and so has cancer. It would seem the only
thing that has remained consistent and unchanging in my life is my femaleness.
My body has changed from childhood into middle adulthood but that’s all they
are...changes. I see my mastectomies simply as changes in my bodily appearance
but not in my sense of who I am.
Source :
http://www.bci.org.au/public/stories12.htm