….they’ll be gone….

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a bilateral mastectomy. Tissue from both breasts will be removed along with some lymph nodes and air filled “spacers” are left in their place until the following week when I go back for the first reconstruction surgery.

I won’t have any nipples. And it is an outpatient procedure. These are the two facts I am having the hardest time wrapping my mind around.

Remember the old Twilight Zone the movie where the kid watches too much tv and he turns around and where his mouth should be is just smooth skin? That’s what I picture my breasts will look like, but with a big scar across the center. It is disconcerting. It is also a small price to pay to be healthy. A few nights ago the group of friends with whom I have spent every Thursday night with for years (in addition to camping trips, school events, hikes and girls weekends and birthday celebrations) made a wish I didn’t even know I had into a reality. “Is there anything you want to do before your mastectomy?” They asked. I hadn’t given it much thought beyond making sure the house was clean, that jeremy had homeschooling instructions and that I had pajamas and comfy sheets, but as soon as they asked I knew the answer. “Skinny dip. Or atleast a topless swim”. It’s May in Spokane. Our lakes are fed mostly by snow melt. Our lakes are cold. I have no idea how they did it but my girls found another friend who had a pool and a hot tub, was going to be out of town, and is, as someone put it, “a woman’s woman”. She was asked. She said of course and offered up her beautiful backyard for our float.

We gathered at dusk. We all had a drink. We all took off our tops and got into the hot tub. It felt so natural and comfortable and empowering and intimate- all the reasons I have always loved skinny dipping. I read something i had written about all the places i had skinny dipped: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Oceans, Sea of Cortez, Gulf of Thailand, lakes up and down the East Coast and a few in the Himalayas. I read about my favorite place, in the Indian Ocean off of Cape Town with Ondine and how I felt so free in those times and so consumed, right now, by fear and logistics and the unknown and more fear. They listened, and they made me feel heard.

I’ve tried to keep today as normal as possible. School with the kids and a workout, Family dinner and an evening walk along with a Covid test (I swear that lady tickled my brain for like 30 seconds) and some blood work and an Injection actually, there were SIX injections and they were done right around my nipple which no one mentioned until I was lying there topless…) with more nuclear crap so they can find the right lymph node tomorrow.

My hope is that jeremy and I will slip out tomorrow for my 6am check in and I will kiss the kids sleeping cheeks without waking them up. Jeremy will drop me off and pick me up but can’t come into the building. Stacey will have my kids over (yes, I know, play dates and hot tubs and Covid, but also cancer, so we’re trying to balance needs and safety) while jeremy picks me up, gets me home and into bed and looking as ok as possible before the kids come home. The dog has gone to the awesome dog sitter lest she lick tear my stitches which is disproportionately sad to me, and this time tomorrow I will be without breasts. And without cancer. I know it’s a good trade off but tonight it’s hard to remember.

My mom, with her free ice cream coupons that she got with her cancer diagnosis. I wish she was here to laugh with me now but I am so thankful to Daniel and Dad and Kaitlin.