Welcoming Home the Troops

Well, it’s finally happened.  I wasn’t sure it ever would. My boobs have become boobs again. 

I have always had this weird love/hate relationship with my boobs. (Sorry, the word breast sounds too clinical to me.) Anyway, I got mine early, well before most of the girls I knew, and I was both proud of them and embarrassed by them.  Boys in my class picked on me, while at the same time wanted to slow dance me with on the Bar Mitzvah circuit.  (Did I mention that I was also really tall when I was 12?  Most of the guys were about boob-high to me.)  My boobs look great in a bathing suit, but I have NEVER been able to button up a blouse.  It’s really weird to love and be annoyed with something at the same time.

And then one day, I found out that my boobs were trying to kill me.  These things that were supposed to be part of my sexual being, a bit of a nuisance at times sure, but an integral part of my womanhood had challenged me to a duel.  It was either them or me. 

I won.

We both came out of the skirmish a bit battle-scarred.  I lost the feeling in my feet from chemo.   Rightie lost a whole chunk of herself.  That has never bothered me.  A piece of a boob in exchange for life is a fairly easy price to pay.  Other breast cancer survivors have given up a lot more.   But the interest on that payment was a feeling of disconnection from two important parts of my body.  I didn’t have to separate myself from my boobs literally, but emotionally and mentally we were three individuals living in the same skin shell.

But just a few weeks ago, a surprising thing happened. I went to my regular six-month appointment with my oncologist.  Somewhere, during the oh so familiar exam, a thought popped into my head – “this man is touching my boobs!!!”  Now any breast cancer survivor knows that part of the whole experience is experience is getting felt up – ALL THE TIME.  I used to joke that when I went back to work, I would sit down in my cube and take off my shirt.  But suddenly, my boobs and I were one, and none of us were entirely comfortable having some man with whom we weren’t intimately involved poking and prodding.

A lot of people talk about cancer and sexual wellbeing – about how to feel like a whole vital person during and after a cancer experience which messes with your parts, your hormones and your head.  I don’t know entirely what I think about that just yet, but I must be on my way to figuring it out.  After all, my boobs are boobs again.