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In two days, it will be seven months since I parted ways with my breasts. "Kirsten, your breasts are not your friends," my breast surgeon diplomatically announced while we were discussing the best plan for eliminating the cancer.
I may sound a tad flip about this, but it is still doesn't seem real. I wake up every morning hoping that I have had a horrendous nightmare. But then I turn on the shower and glimpse my altered state as I pass the mirror. On my brave mornings I stare directly in the mirror, and on others I nonchalantly gaze out the window and pretend all is normal. Windows reflect enough to snap me into reality.
My breasts actually look like a six year old's pencil drawing of Eve in the garden, there is no areola--that was chuck full of cancer cells. This is my issue right now. As far as I know, the cancer is gone, but I am left with the fallout. I hug my kids and I can't feel my breasts. I lean up against a counter and have no sensation in my belly--that's where they harvested the tissue and blood vessels to make my new breasts. My energy is sapped very rapidly--not usual for me. I have little blue tattoos on my chest that guided the radiation beams every day for six weeks this summer. Prior to diagnosis, I never thought, in a million years, that I would ever get breast cancer. But certainly not when I was 44 years old and in excellent health. I taught Spinning and Pilates up until diagnosis, ate an annoyingly healthy diet (ask my friends and family), have a loving & connected family whom I love to explore all sorts of adventures with, and an enduring faith that I have a purpose in life and that this life has meaning.
But then my mind makes a U-TURN and I am thanking God that I am here looking at the 21-inch scar across my belly (I thought my C-section scar was impressive!) and my abstract Picasso breasts. So, I can't feel my breasts, but I am here to hug my kids. My belly is numb, but I can lean up against the kitchen counter and make dinner with my husband and kids. I am exhausted when I wake up in the morning, but the upside is that I am here to get out of bed and take on another new day!
My passion to share my story stems from the sucker-punch I took upon being told I had cancer and needed a mastectomy--and how the wind is knocked out of me each and every time I hear of another sister being diagnosed with this corrosive disease. I want to share what I have lived and learned in the hope that when you, or your sister, or your mother, or your daughter, or your boss, or your best friend, or your estranged friend, or your neighbor gets that diagnosis, you can have a sliver of knowing what you can do. I hate to say, but the odds are high that breast cancer will closely touch your life at some time, if it hasn't already.
It's time to activate your "femme network" and encourage all of your friends to register on this website, follow along and join the dialogue this month as Lancmoms.com strives to bring greater breast health awareness to our community, which will lead to early detection, you know it, that means saved lives.
Navigate to Lancmoms.com Article "Early Detection Means Saved Lives".
Go to caringbridge.org & enter "Kirstenmurray" for journal entries from January 2009-September 2009.
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Posts: 11
Comments: 21
Share the physical and emotional realities of a healthy 44 year old wife and mother of three teens receiving a breast cancer diagnosis, undergoing bilateral mastectomy, DIEP flap recon., radiation, & my present journey to back to health.
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breast (3)
reconstruction (2)
mammogram (2)
mastectomy (2)
diagnosis; (2)
cancer (2)
tissue; (1)
communication (1)
family (1)
guidelines (1)
areola/nipple (1)
dense (1)
teens (1)
cancer; (1)
flap (1)
diep (1)
survivor (1)
early (1)
detection; (1)
survivor; (1)
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