The "End"

Today is a milestone of sorts: the end of my bionic breast reconstruction. Of course, there never really is an ending to the whole experience, what with checks every three months, ongoing monitoring of my status, medication for at least the next 4 1/2 years, and the probable necessity of further encapsulotomies because of my overactive scar tissue. But if there is an end to them fussing with the cosmetic aftermath of my mastectomy, I guess today is the day.

Today, my bionics will be tattooed to look "normal." This is so weird to me, on so many levels, it just boggles. Like everything else in this Pam Soap Opera, it's just one more smack of the surreal.

Before I got the starring role in this particular drama, I'm absolutely sure I never thought about what actually happened to women who had breast cancer, mastectomies or reconstruction. It never occurred to me that breasts & nipples could be fashioned out of skin, muscle and silicone implants, and that tattoos would color the aureoles (interestingly, the same color, same texture, as one's lips). And yet here I am, a walking poster child to the miracles of modern plastic surgery.

It's fine, miraculous really, in the abstract; but who would really want to go there, given the choice? That is the point, of course--my choices were limited to reconstruction or no reconstruction, and I'm not sure I even gave the no reconstruction option any thought at all. I just assumed that I would have some kind of reconstruction, and this is what was available, this is what I got.

As in, "I had a double mastectomy and all I got was this lousy T-shirt (and what fills it)."

So, one foot in front of the other, I have just plodded along the whole process as an act of faith, trusting that the surgeon knew what step was next, and trusting that eventually this Brave New Bod would become less strange, less alien. I'm not there yet, not at all.

But I go, and I submit, because that is what is next. And maybe sometime in the future, it will be all right.