WHAT ABOUT MY NIPPLES!?
I’ve known I’ve had cancer for a little under three weeks and it feels like THREE MONTHS. My gosh. The rate at which it’s consumed my life makes me think… what the fuck was I doing before this? Just floating through life? How easy I used to have it!
I have this life threatening thing inside me, but it’s not making me feel any physically different. I’m not weaker or coughing or turning blue, I’m totally fine and look 110% normal. So right now, the battle is in my head. I feel like I know what it’s like to have a serious mental health issue because I can’t see it, I can’t feel it, but I know something is majorly wrong.
The lesson here is that you truly NEVER EVER know what is going on beyond the surfaces of people you interact with, watch on social media or see from afar. I mean, I was teaching fitness classes, going to work, showing up for meetings and getting shit done, all while wondering… mhmm I wonder if I have cancer and I wonder if today is the day they’ll tell me. Be kind. Always. Always. Always. You have no idea what other humans are going through, so just do your part to be nice, assume the best and give grace. We’re all out here trying our best.
As of me writing this, we still do not know what type of surgery I will have between a lumpectomy or a unilateral (aka single) or bilateral (aka double) mastectomy.
In a lumpectomy, their goal is to go in and get just the lump out and leave me with enough breast tissue to have a normal looking boob coming out and to leave the nipple in tact.
In a mastectomy, they remove the entire breast.
Now, one thing I do know for sure is that I will get plastic surgery to have a normal boob shape there, I am not going flat. Which is a term from back in the day when they didn’t do implants and such, people just had to accept going flat. Gah. Thank goodness for medical advancements. Or like when I was talking to my nana who had breast cancer at 44, she said “well it must be nice you get to have decisions to make because for me it was wham, bam, thank you mam and I left with one less boob.”
If I have a mastectomy, they rarely are able to save your nipples and even more unlikely, the feeling that comes with having nipples
They are a large part of my sexual health, there I said it. Ugh I will desperately miss that feeling. Another reason I would also miss my nipples is the look of them. If you google mastectomy, you’ll see, you essentially get the shape of a boob without a nipple. So it would be weird to get use to not having those little nips up top.
At the beginning, I honestly wasn’t that scared. Probably because I feel 110% fine, and I look in the mirror and don’t see what we see perceived on TV as cancer. But as I continue on and learning everyone’s journey is sooo different and as this has been coming at me, I realize how serious it is. I don’t cry in my appointments though, I am in there like a little student, taking notes and asking questions and remaining calm.
Other than occasional sadness, it’s very fucking stressful.
I swear every appointment I go to sprouts 1-2 more. I thank God my workplace is extremely flexible and supportive because I truly do not know how anyone goes through a diagnosis like this and makes all these appointments because they come at you hard and fast, allllll between the hours of 9-5 pm.
I pick up everrryyyy 317 zip code call now a days and I never know wtf is going to be. So it’s hard to take these calls, lock my brain into cancer mode, and then unlock a moment later and be like ok back to work. Again, all of my close coworkers know about what’s going on so they’re super supportive, but man oh man, is it very distracting and my focus is crap lately.
I am finding humor though…
For example, Jacob and I went to BSU homecoming and back in my day there, my girlfriends and I used to drink four locos (gross, I know). I was telling a BSU girlfriend of mine we were there and she was like oh drink one for us! And I said bitch that’s probably what gave me cancer in the first place! Or maybe if I drink it now, it will kill it since that drink is essentially toxic AF.
When I had my friend (shout out Candice) take the photos of me I posted so far, I kind of felt like I was celebrating the fact I had acne and wondered, should i be doing this at all? And then I remembered, people set of literal bombs and light forests on fire to announce their dumb baby’s gender, so yeah I’m going to own and announce my cancer however the fuck I want.
I’m mostly posting humorous things on my Instagram, so if you aren’t already following, go check it out at @saramcinerneyhauck. My latest humorous stream was counting all the sperm swag present in our fertility office during two back to back visits.
I think I may wrap it up here for now. Thank you for reading and allowing me to express myself through my art. It really is helpful and forces me to be alone and digest this on my own without others opinions, ideas or thoughts.
PROMPT
How can you assume the best in someone else, instead of the worst? Remember, you never know what people are going through privately.
Please feel free to share your action item with me in the comments below. It always feels good to write it out!
