A Breastrospective

I.
I’m baring myself here, tits and all.

One morning, I’m doing a breast self-exam for the first time in a long time because I’ve been feeling a lot of discomfort and weirdness on and off in the upper left of my chest and back for a few weeks. And that’s when I find the lump. Its presence is palpable at approximately a centimeter in diameter and hard.

At work I watch the clock and call the clinic as soon as it opens to get an appointment with my doctor. She confirms the lump and sends me to radiology to schedule bilateral mammograms and an ultrasound. My tests will follow a week and a half later, the earliest appointments available.

Once I have my pink slip, I walk to the car. I am crying, hard, before I can get the door unlocked and slide in behind the wheel.

II.
It’s not my first lump ever. But this one feels different. And I feel differently about it. I find myself thinking that the lump must be related to the chest and back discomfort, and I wonder if some huge tumor is growing inside my rib cage, pressing on my vital organs and extending itself through my ribs and into my breast. I realize that logically I cannot know this, and I’d likely be in much worse shape if it were true, but I cannot stop crying, nonetheless. I know I’ll be no good at the office, so I call my friend and colleague Rose, tell her what’s happening and ask if she will gather my things and meet me outside.

Rose is waiting at the curb when I pull up at the office. “Can you talk for a few minutes?” she asks, concerned. I nod.

We sit at a picnic table in a secluded corner of the parking lot, and I tell her what I know. She offers me sips of her hazelnut latte, which comforts, and she offers to go with me for the tests, which comforts even more. She shares her own and her mother’s experiences with lumps, both benign, and our talk helps me regain equilibrium. I even make us both laugh when I say, “Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. You know, I just needed an excuse today to avoid writing up my damned performance review.”

Back home, I call Doc. Our “opensure” is new and tentative, but his response of “A lump? Shit! Oh shit!” gives me a sense of comradeship, and his inquiries about my symptoms and next steps help me feel less overwhelmed. Still, unable to sit still, alone in my house in front of my monitor after we hang up, I walk next door to Kate and Jake’s and tell Kate. Kate offers to go with me on testing day too, and she reassures me, pointing out that the appearance of such lumps is not uncommon in menopause. Jake provides comfort food, making tunafish sandwiches and pouring glasses of milk.

Later I call Horst, who tells me he’ll call his mom, a breast cancer survivor, for more information about what I can expect with the tests. As I am lying in bed that night, staring at the ceiling and starting to worry, he calls. “Are you worrying? Don’t. My mom says that 80 to 90 percent of these lumps are benign.”

I am so thankful for my friends, I think, just before I drift off to sleep, calmed, with Horst’s voice in my ear.

III.
I am large busted. Well-endowed. Stacked. Have a rack. And I’ve had an ambivalent relationship with my breasts my whole life. I’ve felt, at various times, impatient for them, delighted by them, betrayed by them, dismayed by them, happy with them, unhappy with them, comfortable with them, at peace with them. Now I’m afraid of them.

In fifth grade, I couldn’t get them soon enough.

I remember cornering my mother in the kitchen one afternoon after school, away from my three younger, inquisitive siblings. Umm, Mom,” I asked, “I was wondering. . . Ummm, ahhhh, ummmm . . . could I get a bra?”

It had taken me a couple of weeks to work up the courage to raise the subject. I held my breath as I waited for her answer. In retrospect, I applaud how careful she was. “Well, sweetie,” she said, “Bras can be uncomfortable, but if you feel like you need the support . . .”

“Yes,” I said, relieved that making my case was this easy, although not quite understanding what my mother meant by “support.” I’d had a twinge or two of late over my chest and so I expected my breasts to pop out any day now, and I really, really, really wanted one of those pretty white satin-and-lace bras, with the little shaped cups and the pink rose stitched between them. Already this week, three more girls had shown off theirs in the bathroom, away from the watchful eyes of our Catholic school nuns, and I was envious and embarrassed. I didn’t care if getting a bra would cost me my standing with the boys as arm wrestling and dodge ball champion; I wanted one too. “I think I really need one,” I said.

My mom took me shopping that weekend. I felt so excited, on the verge of something wonderful and mysterious: I’d have a bra, breasts, and my hair would grow long -and straight, miraculously. I wandered through the girls’ underwear department, gazing blissfully at the pretty things, while my mom consulted with the saleswoman.

Moments later she stood in front of me. I stared blankly at the utilitarian-looking white cotton triangles joined by thin strips of elastic that she dangled on a plastic hanger. “What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a training bra, honey,” said my mom, gently.

Clearly my mom needed more explanation. “But mom, that’s not the kind of bra I need. I need that kind of bra,” and I pointed to the lacy cupped bra with the pink rose.

“Sweetie,” my mom said, “That bra is too big for you.”

I think I ended up with both bras because my mother could sense my dismay and my fragility over what I seemed to be taking as a blow to my girlhood at the thought that I could not muster up enough to fill those lacy cups when all the other fifth grade girls could. Once home, I tried on both bras. Of course, the training bra fit. And of course, the lacy rosebud bra bagged in the cups.

I tried on the lacy bra every morning and every evening for the next month or so, impatiently willing my breasts to grow and fill it. I refused to stoop to stuffing, although I did pray to God to intercede on my behalf. Twice a day, every day for a month I persisted. But then one day, I’d had enough. Nothing was happening. Nothing was EVER going to happen. I inveighed against the other girls at school; I cursed the stupid tempting bras designed to get one’s hopes up with promises, undelivered, of all wonderful things; I railed against God – and went so far as to question if there even was a God. And then I balled up that loathsome lacy bra and stuffed it in a brown paper bag on which I wrote in all caps: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 21!!!!!!!! And I shoved that damned bag way, way, way, way, way back in the linen closet, where we didn’t find it until we moved some two or three years later.

IV.
Over the next few days, after finding the lump, I struggle. Lying in bed at night alone is the hardest. This is typically my prime time for mental self-torture, it is true, but it is also true that right now I find it is the time of day where I wish there was someone to hold me and say, “Stop worrying, Wenchie. You’re okay for now. We just have to wait and find out. In the meantime, let’s try not to worry.”

In bed in the evenings and in the mornings, I feel the lump. I check it so often that the area over my left rib cage soon is throbbing constantly. Or, I wonder, is it throbbing constantly because of a fast-growing cancer? What if I only have weeks to live? My outlook blackens fast, and these thoughts start to plague me during the days as well. So unlike me, I think, and so I make an appointment with my counselor to talk. In her office, I talk and talk around things, holding myself to cheerful stoicism, while she listens, silent, calm, and watchful, until suddenly I blurt out what I haven’t said to any other person besides myself.

“I know I don’t know anything yet, and there’s really no sense in worrying. And I’m not really worrying, but what if I do have cancer?” My voice trembles, and I am almost defiant. “I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to trivialize the battles cancer patients and others are fighting for their lives every single day, but I just don’t want to deal with this.”

Julia, my counselor, is not shocked. I see that I don’t have to protect her, and that frees me to say what feels true and has been frightening me most. “I just don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired of fighting and bucking up and healing and integrating and working through shit and being responsible and earning a living and taking care of a house and a car and work and my health and doing what needs doing all by myself. I just don’t want to work so hard anymore. I’m not going to fight this.”

We both let me cry for as long as I need to.

That night, I lie awake in bed for a very long time. But I’m not as scared – not of maybe having cancer nor of my own thoughts. I would still prefer to have somebody here to hold me and tell me not to worry, that it will be okay, and that whatever happens, we’ll handle it together. But the fact remains that I don’t have an intimate with me right now, in this moment. Other than myself, that is. And I think about this for a while: Can I do for myself what Julia did for me today – simply sit with what I’m feeling, really be here for me now?

It feels a little silly, but I try saying the words out loud: “Stop worrying, Wenchie. You’re okay for now. We just have to wait and find out. In the meantime, let’s try not to worry.”

And my voice, in the dark room, sounds soft and gentle and soothing to me.

I talk to myself for a while. I call myself “sweetie” and “honey.” I am kind and tender with my words. I sing myself a lullaby. The cat, perhaps curious, comes and curls beside me on the pillow and licks my face. I sink into myself and fall asleep.

V.
Anyway, the final laugh (God’s?) was on me when I “busted out” as they say, years later, in high school, from a modest C cup to a double D, between my junior and senior years. This new development, shall we say, strangely complicated my image as the nerdy girl who was one of “the brain squad,” along with all the computer and physics guys. Now I was confused, as were the boys I suspect: Did they want me for my witty repartee and stellar lab write-ups or did they hope to eventually cop a feel? When my guy posse, with whom I’d hung out for years, started using lines from our favorite Monty Python movies against me (“Wenchie has such ‘huge tracts of land’!), I felt betrayed, by my breasts and by them.

Partially to maintain my brainiac image and ensure that none of my peers confused “big-breasted” with “easy” – and partially in retribution – I refused to date any of the guys, and instead started seeing an older man who feigned no interest whatsoever in my mind.

VI.
As good fortune and organizational skills (not mine) would have it, my sister Mare comes into town for a week’s visit a few days after the lump’s discovery. I have taken the time off from work, and Mare, quiet and smart, direct and practical, quickly takes me in hand and gets us into a routine. She cleans my house and has us taking daily walks, watching movies, and getting out and about. She refuses to let me dwell in anxiety.

“Listen,” Mare says firmly, holding up her hand when I tentatively suggest that I show her where I keep my will and other documents, “No. We’re not doing that. Not now. IF we find out something’s wrong and I need to come back out, I will. And THEN you can show me everything. But we’re not going there now. Not while we don’t know anything.”

And that is that. Mare’s boundary-setting works, and within a couple of days, our conversations and walks and excursions and Scrabble games crowd out my daytime worrying. We do girly things: eat cake and chocolates, lunch, get manicures and pedicures, go shopping. I’m surprised to realize I’m having so much fun.

At night, though, after we call our goodnights down the hall to one another, I lie in bed with my thoughts. I’m not feeling morbid, really; rather, I am growing curious and surprisingly light-hearted in inquiry. Having given myself permission NOT to fight, and enjoying having my sister here to play with, I find myself asking, “Am I, in fact, ready to leave? And will I leave with any regrets?”

I am surprised to discover that I have very few. There are no places where I’m dying (forgive me) to go or things I feel I haven’t done. There are a handful of very difficult experiences that I wish I had not had, and a handful of lovely experiences and some states that I wish I had the pleasure of dwelling in longer, but I feel mostly at peace either way. Looking back over my life, I see that I’ve worked through adversity and tragedy, and I’ve known deep joy and happiness. Key story arcs have completed, and I realize that right now I am doing all of the things I wanted to do when I grew up: living pretty free; enjoying a community rich in friends and family; watching my daughter take off in her life; adventuring in and exploring the world; writing. What more I do want is to see how it all plays out – and that simply requires more time.

I’ve been very lucky to make it to midlife and to feel this way. And I decide, if I don’t have cancer, then in this next part of my life, I will use the rest of me all up.

And how will you do that? I ask myself and I begin to find that that thought intrigues me.

VII.
Breasts and sex. Divine. Breasts and pregnancy and childbearing. Miraculous. My breasts grew even larger when I was pregnant, quite overwhelming me. I didn’t know that they even made cup sizes that big. But my breasts dazzled me as well, when nine months later, they let me nurse a baby. I felt like such a mammal. A big, soft, milk-producing, life-giving mammal animal.

Childbearing, weight gain, weight loss and gravity all did their part over the years, and a couple of decades later, I considered having a breast reduction operation. At the plastic surgeon’s for an evaluation, I found myself feeling protective of and almost indignant for my breasts when he said, after having a look at them, “I could give you prettier ones.”

I leafed through a portfolio of his work and discovered that even breast beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

VIII.
Testing day is the day after the day after Mare leaves, and I stay busy cleaning and exercising and writing. I check in with Sydney and Libby and Chris, who has me in tears, laughing, when she reminds me of her own recent lump scare and the doctor’s cheery pronouncement that it was nothing, “merely calcifications due to the fact that [her] breasts were atrophying as all women’s do in menopause.” “Great,” I say. “Maybe I’m merely atrophying.”

The evening before testing day, Kate checks in and confirms that she’ll meet me in radiology, and Kate and Jake and I go to dinner. George comes by and we watch a movie. At the very end of the day, Horst calls and reminds me that 80 to 90 percent of lumps are benign. I tell him I’ll call as soon as I have results.

At work the morning of testing day, I stop by and say hi to Colleen. She tells me she’s been thinking of me and feels all will be well. Doc checks in by email, and I have lunch with Chaika, who entertains me with her observations of people and recommendations of good reads. “I’ll be thinking of you then,” she says, when I tell her my appointment time. Rose stops by with roses and a hug. I tell her she will be the first person I call once I know – just as she was the first person I called when we found the lump.

I know that everyone’s thoughts are with me, and I leave work for my appointment feeling strong.

IX.
I have had lovers who loved my breasts and others who preferred that I keep a top and maybe even a bra on, as they were disappointed with the way my breasts looked when they were not, as one said, “all trussed up.” Doc endeared himself to me the first time we were in bed together and he practically serenaded them.

“Tops off,” he said.

I hesitated. “I’m feeling self-conscious.”

“Okay. Let’s get this over with, once and for all,” he said, with mock exasperation. “Let’s have a look.” He removed my shirt and bra and moved my arms away from my chest and gazed at my breasts, as I watched his face in the candlelight.

“Why, they’re wonderful!,” he said, after a few moments. “Just look at them. They’re the breasts of a woman who has been pregnant and nursed a baby, a woman who’s now in midlife, who’s experienced gravity just like the rest of us. Breasts come in all shapes and sizes; yours are soft, and pendulous, and they’re just fine.” He spoke tenderly and earnestly.

I laughed at Doc’s speech and welcomed him happily.

X.
Kate’s is the first face I see when I walk into the radiology waiting room. She is sitting, calmly knitting. I fill out paperwork with her at my side, and then we talk. She tells me about her knitting project and I find it very intriguing, as it’s about making sweaters for orphans. She smiles at my questions and, when I start at the sound of my name being called a good 10 minutes later, says, “I just wanted to distract you. It worked, didn’t it?” Kate gives me a big hug before I walk through the double doors for my tests.

I take off my shirt and bra and don a gown, open in the front. The radiologist takes me to a mammography room, and takes several x-rays of both breasts. When she’s finished, she asks me to wait while the doctor reads the results.

It is a long wait. I thumb through two magazines, distractedly. And then I close them and sit quietly.

What will I do if I have cancer? I ask myself. And my answer is I will do what I can. I feel a sense of peace.

It seems like hours, but I’m sure it’s only a few minutes more before the radiologist returns. “Mammograms are clear,” she says. “We don’t see anything of concern.” I breathe deeply, with relief.

We do an ultrasound as well, and the verdict is “lumpy breasts” – calcification. Thankfully, no one uses the word “atrophy,” but I wouldn’t care if they did, if it’s the case that I don’t have cancer.

Dressed, I return to the waiting room, where my smile tells Kate the news. “I’m so happy,” she says, hugging me tightly. “What a relief.” She calls Jake; I hear his voice, glad, on the other end of the phone.

I call everyone – Rose, Mare, Horst, Chris, Doc, Libby, Cyn – everyone. The conversations are happy and sweet, the relief audible in everyone’s voices. I feel increasingly light, giddy almost, as the worry and anxiety I’ve been carrying, to an extent I didn’t realize, continue to lift.

XI.
At the end of the day, Kate and I regroup to take a celebratory walk out at the Baylands. The vista is magnificent, a cloudless evening sky with the mountains that ring the bay sharply visible. The air feels good, as does my body, as we stride along the levees.

“So what,” I say, “I have lumpy breasts that hang down to my knees. I don’t have cancer, and I have breasts!”

“And knees!” says Kate.

I laugh. And I thank Kate for being here for me through this experience.

“You are welcome,” she says. And then she asks, “So, now that you’ve been given this new life, what are you going to do with it?”

I think for a minute. “Great question. I don’t know the answer yet,” I say, “But I do know this: I’d like to listen better, show appreciation more, put my house in order, keep writing, and . . . just use me all up before it really is time to go.”

“Nice,” says Kate.

The relief, the fresh air, the exercise, the friendship all work their magic. And that night, when I get into bed, I feel happy, and I have not a single thought before I am deep asleep.

The Word Wench’s Weblog is a fictional memoir, and any resemblance to any person living or dead (you know who you are!) is purely coincidental. Please subscribe to weekly Sunday updates through RSS feed or by sending an email to TheWordWench@gmail

Tags: breast lumps, Fictional Memoir, friendship, love, menopause, Personal, Word Wench