Every appointment gives me a new set of questions to come away with, a new decision to be made. Each time I make a decision, I head back to another appointment and I’m presented with a new set of crap to deal with.

I met with the radiation oncologist yesterday.
Because I opted for a lumpectomy, I have to have radiation.
I didn’t opt for the mastectomy, because there was no guarantee that my lymph nodes would be negative, and if I woke up from surgery with that bad news, I’d have to have radiation anyway.

Smart, I thought.

But, I was supposed to have met with a geneticist to see if I have the BRCA1/BRCA2 gene. When she called and left me a message, I had just heard from the surgeon that she had to postpone my surgery because there was “something” on the other breast MRI and also on my liver, needless to say, my intrest in genetic testing went out the window and my life flashed before my eyes.

Well, the tiny lump in the other breast is NOT cancer (per the biopsy they did) and what’s on my liver is the topic of debate. The surgeon said it was not cancer, because it would have taken up the glucose and radioactive isotope in the PET/CT scan they did…the Medical oncologist said it’s just 5mm, which is too small to really take up glucose if it were cancer…so she can’t conclusively say it’s not cancer.

Chemo: I will start it just after the elections. I had to battle this should I/Shouldn’t I for quite a while.

There are many, many negatives to the chemo.
But, the long term rate of metastasis or reoccurance is much much lower the more I do.

So, as I make one decision, up comes another. Mastectomy.
If I test positive for the BRCA gene, it means I’m likely to have another breast cancer…so I have to come to terms with this mastectomy thing, when, how, what…etc.

Reconstruction thoughts,ugh. Silicone? no thanks…that crap needs to be replaced every 10 to 15 years and when they degrade, there’s evidence of auto-immune diseases from them (lupus, and arthritis to be exact) Saline implants…not sure about them…I hear they burst.

Implants in general—something plastic and foreign in the body…ew.

The thought of the autologous implant is horrific. They cut bits from here and there, your abdomen and tunnel it under your skin to the breast area so it has connection to the abdominal blood supply. Taking muscle and fat, and I don’t even want to tell you how they reconstruct a nipple and where they want to take THAT skin from, let me just say, it makes you cross your legs and brings a tear to your eyes.

So, the alternative is to walk around as flat chested as a 14 year old boy. This isn’t so bad, I guess. My husband is really against the thought of either the implants or the reconstruction for how horrible it seems and how long it would take to recover from it. He’s assured me he doesn’t care about the overall “look” if I decide to stay without implants.

Here’s the moment of truth: What’s the right choice for me? I never thought I was vain, or interested…I never really much thought about my breasts, but now, the thought of swimming and surfing without a set of boobs in my way, as I’m used to…really sort of sucks.

I wish I knew why I was having such a hard time with this.

It feels as if I’m buying survival by cutting off pieces of myself and sacrificing them…here, boobs, hair, ovaries…what else can I throw out? Like ballast for survival.

Fuck Cancer.

_{ps, posting pictures of my face has been hard, posting pictures of my nakedness is even harder…I don’t know why I’m doing it. What the hell should I be shy for, anymore? I’m sorry if this offends anyone.}