Excerpt from Tit Tatts: Life After Breast Cancer

PRELUDE

Little girls can hardly wait to have boobies.  When I was about 13 I started to notice a difference in my body.  I wasn’t all LITTLE GIRL anymore.  By 14 it was pretty evident and at 15, I was verifiably a WOMAN.  My goodness, there is a lot of attention paid to those adornments!  It may not have been prime time but it was certainly getting there and I was proud of it.  Wow.  I didn’t have to do ANYTHING, but wait.

The day I returned home from the doctors’ office where I learned I had breast cancer, I went to the bedroom and I skinned out of my sweater.  I looked into the mirror and saw that 15 year old staring back at me and we both cried.    NO!!!!  This is not fair.

Crying is a necessary step and once you are thru with that, you embark upon the journey of a lifetime.

Then you become very religious.  If you hadn’t been before, you know what it means now.  Everyone does.  Then you feel it is not just YOUR problem.  You push that up the ladder.  So, while God is doing His thing, you start making your plans.

“OK.  I will have this done. I will do whatever it takes to get over it. They can remove my breast and replace it and then I will get on with my life.  There.  The parts that I can’t control, I choose to ignore for now.”  God’s part had to kick in.

I didn’t know enough regarding what was about to happen but I knew I had no choice, so I was up for it.  (Ignorance is bliss.)
After the ordeal you learn to actually LIVE instead of to just ‘stay busy’ with life.  It is empowering to overcome such a horrific thing and be allowed to go on stronger than before.  It makes you more alive, more determined to live your life on your own terms.  It gives you courage, to try things you never would have tried or accomplished before.  You don’t even have to pass “GO” to get your $200.  You have ALREADY fought the battle and won.  

Now you are back in front of the same mirror and after all the cutting and the scarring, things are beautiful again because the scars are just memories and it had a great deal to do with something as shallow and simple as TIT TATTS.....................……

The 15 year old me is smiling back.