Flat AF

Last April when I felt like I was on a runaway train after getting diagnosed, I was given some options as far as after the mastectomy: reconstruction, no reconstruction, delayed reconstruction. I'll level with you - as someone who developed breasts a lot earlier than some of my classmates, my relationship with my boobs was always complicated. I got unwanted attention from basically 3rd or 4th grade on, almost always tried to wear looser clothing to try and hide them, then got badgered by my mom with "why don't you wear things that fit?" At times I even wondered what it would be like to not have them...or to have smaller ones. ANYWAY, fast forward a lot and within the last few, years I'd finally grown more comfortable with them. The idea of them going away was traumatizing in itself and thinking about waking up with nothing there was worse. My breast surgeon suggested no recon, like her or going direct to implants. The plastic surgeon suggested delayed recon because radiation could fuck things up. I went with delayed and had what's known as a skin sparing mastectomy. I think I've described elsewhere that it basically is like someone opened up the skin on my breasts and scooped everything out. I don't care for it. I think it was one day last July, I was getting dressed to go visit a friend and realized that when I looked in the mirror, I didn't mind what I saw. I liked the image of me with no breasts, and at that point started thinking that maybe being flat would be ok.

Then the research started. I found amazing photos of flat women online and saw that hey, this can be normal! And beautiful, sexy, cool, confident...all of it. Then I started looking into recon. Breast implants have a shelf life of about 10-15 years. Like, literally, they should be replaced about that often. I ruled that out on that basis, deciding if I wanted to look into reconstruction w/ my own tissue. There's one called DIEP reconstruction - a person's own tissue is used from the abdominal area and transferred up top to create new breasts. As a fat girl, I thought "holy shit, this is my time!!" Then I looked into it. It's many hours of mircosurgery, there's an incision that runs from hip to hip, hospital stay, chance of tissue death, so no thank you. (I had a lot of necrosis with the nipple grafting and it was very traumatic. Yeah I don't think I've written about that yet.) Other flap type recons were out because they involve moving muscle from either your abs or shoulder around to the front & then placing implants. At a follow up appointment with my surgeon, I'll call her Dr. O, I told her I decided to go flat. She asked why, I explained, she was cool with it. Said she'd write the script for things like mastectomy bras, etc.

Collage with glorious flatness fr. Flat Retreat page on FB

In the meantime, I joined a couple of FB groups for women who were flat after breast cancer and I found a group of some of the most fantastic women. I've learned so much about the breast cancer community and that quite a lot of women who ask for flat results - flat closure reconstruction - are ignored because doctors aren't respecting their choice. (Damn, that sounds familiar...) One such lady started Not Putting on a Shirt to help advocate for this and she began keeping a list updated with names of surgeons from around the country that gave good flat results. I contacted her for a name & got the list as well as a recommendation.

In June, I had a follow up with Dr. O. Which seemed weird because why do I have to keep seeing her? I see an oncologist several times a year who does the same kind of examination. Anyway, I'd been having a trying week and unfortunately I got emotional in the office. I say it was unfortunate because when I then talked about wanting to be flat, she didn't take me seriously. She launched into a crazy tirade about it that included reasons such as: it's really hard to get insurance to pay for revision, we could have just done this in the first place, you're so young, "once we do it, if you change your mind, that skin is gone," and "you'll be pear shaped." I told her I'd done research, stated my reasons, and mentioned the groups I'd found and she cut me off saying "I know about all the groups." And took my hand saying gently "don't let someone else's story be your own." Which is basically what she was doing? She brightened considerably about the surgery when I mentioned I thought a plastic surgeon had to do it & then said "oh if that's what you want..." then told me I should give it more time. I'd had a year!! I realized when I left that appointment and cried that I am not going back to her. If a friend told me about a doctor treating them that way, I would tell them to GTFO & find another doctor. The great part of this was me sharing with Flatties Unite (one of the groups) and joking about how she thought the group was a bad influence.

Melissa Jansen, (I Don't Need Two) with the meme magic. 

I did end up giving it more time because of how scheduling worked out. It also turns out that if someone has radiation, one should wait about a year before trying anything so the tissues have a chance to heal. After seeing Dr. Clark at Ironwood, I felt so much better about this decision! She referred me over to Dr. Berardi, a plastic surgeon, to answer some more questions and we're going forward with surgery this December. I am nervous because it's surgery, but excited because I'll get rid of this excess skin. She thinks it could possibly help with my lymphedema as well, since getting rid of the skin & scar tissue would make it easier for the lymph to move.

Seeing these two new doctors has given me a lot of feels. Specifically a lot of "this is so different from last time" and "oh god, I wish I'd found them first" feels which has been so hard. I can't let myself fall into that hole, though. Gotta keep moving forward.

A note - there's a lot from last year that I'm still kinda working through in my head and I intend to talk about it. But haven't gotten around to it yet. I've said it before that I intended to talk about things in a linear fashion, but that's clearly not happening and we'll all have to deal with it. 

It's Just Hair

"It's just hair" was something I finally managed to convince myself the first time I truly went short on purpose. There were several other times in the prior to that occasion when I had short hair, but it wasn't because I said "here make my hair look like this" it was because of accidents - and once a stylist was having a super bad day and I wasn't going to tell the angry lady with scissors to please calm down. That first triumphant success started a tradition of cutting my hair in summer, then letting it grow out. Until last year.

Last year, after being diagnosed, I didn't know what to do about a whole lot of things. I didn't know if I'd need chemo. If I did, I knew for sure that I had one friend who was willing to shave her head with me and I was tentatively planning a Furiosa cosplay. But I had no idea. My hair was just past shoulder length at time of surgery and after a few days, I wish I had cut it because it got gross. I couldn't shower for a week. Dry shampoo was too little, too late by the time we tried it (and it didn't help that Jason and I had no fucking clue what we were doing). Also I couldn't lift my arms above my head yet so it was all him.

Anyway, I think sometime in June, maybe July I got a call that one test had come back with good results, so they were sending it for another one, an Oncotype test. That one tests many things and then spits out a score that determines, along with other factors, if you need chemotherapy. More time passed and I finally heard back - the score was good! BUT...a medical oncologist still needed to determine whether it was good enough to not need chemo. I'll spare you all that drama, but the 2nd opinion trusted the science - so much so that she invited a person who works for the testing company to an appointment so they could go over charts, graphs, and other related information to show us why she trusted the science. Then came radiation and it was just awful. by the time it was done, it was no longer my "season" so to speak.

In February of this year, I got a trim, just a few inches. I didn't know what I wanted yet. Then came Avengers: Endgame. Seriously, look at Captain Marvel's hair! It's amazing! #Hairspiration for days!

Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. My #hairspiration. 

Look at her! So badass! Ready to do whatever
it takes to bring down Thanos & his army.

 I finally knew what I wanted, but I also knew that the last time I had a similar cut, my hair went into wild, curly waves and I had no idea what to do with it. So I booked an appointment at Arcane Hair Parlour with Katie, on the suggestion of a friend. This way, I'd get the cut I wanted or as close to it as possible, and someone to teach me what to do with it. On appointment day, she'd also been looking at photos, and we figured out exactly what to take from the look & apply it to my head. And it worked out pretty great...

Day of cut, finished mostly straight.

Over a month later, on my own, I decided to use a box 'o dye with a color called Midnight Iris. I'd always let myself be talked out of super dark shades. But I kinda wanted some blue, and I decided if not now, when? So I went for it. And to my pleasant delight, it also worked out great. (Otherwise, I'd have had to contact Katie, fess up to having used the dye I admitted to having, and then spend a shit ton of money having her fix my mistake.)

I feel a little goofy writing about my hair, but, as odd as it may sound to some of you, this was a big deal. Cutting my hair felt like reclaiming another part of myself from this bullshit cancer "journey" I've been on for over a year. Yeah, taking care of it is a little more work, but it's worth it. Not only because of the reclaiming bit, but it also feels really great. I'm trying salon products for the first time in my life and, uh, yeah. They're totally worth it.

"It's just hair," doesn't have quite the same flippancy to it anymore, because while it is 'just hair' and will grow back, to me, last summer, it was the difference between chemo or no chemo. The start of some horrifying process to kill the cancer or getting to skip it. I got to skip it. And now, I fucking love my hair.

Me looking a bit sassy with my midnight iris locks.