Why am I having another surgery?

This is a weird post to write. I’m hoping that since I am flipping out about my surgery in just over 48 hours, writing this could be cathartic, lessen some of my anxiety, give me some release.

Over the last few months I’ve had people ask me why I was going for a second surgery. I’m an open person, and a big believer in talking through your problems—a problem shared is a problem halved, that sort of thing. If I didn’t talk about things going on in my life, I think I would have imploded years ago. So when I would say that I had another surgery to go in my breast cancer saga, I was always prepared for the “what” question, and would respond with the whole “it’s called a revision, I had a partial mastectomy last year after chemo, but they call the recon a work in progress, radiation shrinks you, excess skin, scarring, balancing,” blah, blah, blah.

But the question that threw me each time was the “why?” “Why are you having another surgery?” “Aren’t you worried that something could go wrong? “Why not leave well enough alone?” “I wouldn’t let them near me with a scalpel again.” “They look fine to me.”

Why would these questions and comments bother me so much? I’m the one who says to talk everything over, get it out in the open. Maybe it’s because I’ve hit a tipping point where talking isn’t helping anymore. Maybe because I finally have to face I’m a vain person. If you’re a friend, or have been following my story, you’ll know how freaked out I was about losing my hair, butI still don’t think of that as vanity as much as it was about losing my identity and not recognizing myself. But really, is not wanting to have two differently sized breasts vanity? I’ve met wonderful women who walked away from their mastectomies and lumpectomies without any further surgeries and they’re satisfied, content, happy and thriving.

So here’s what I think, after much self-examination.

I want to do the surgery because I feel that cancer has taken away more than a year of my life, has left me with lymphedema of the arm, hand, breast and trunk, a lifelong sentence of wearing a compression sleeve and glove, the need for twice daily exercises and self-massage, restriction of movement, pain, loss of energy, craving for sleep that never satisfies, feeling that my memory will never work well again, and the crushing fear that the cancer will come back.

I intend to be here for a long, long time, and I want to take back as much as I can from cancer. I want my hair back to my shoulders, and I want breasts that match. I look at these things every single day, and while I’ll never get the original size back (nor would I want it back now that I’ve experienced life at this size), I do want to be able to fit into an off-the-shelf bra and not have to rearrange myself all day long. Or wear a prosthetic breast form.

I want to be able to buy a bra from La Senza or Victoria’s Secret and have it fit. I’d also like to be able to function on eight hours of sleep a day instead of 14, but small steps, small steps.