I just didn’t want this day to come.
I can’t believe of course that this is happening to me. I am now sitting in bed just under 2 hours before I arrive at the hospital. For surgery. For this cancer thingie of the breast. All from the MRI. And I don’t feel it. Or maybe I didn’t notice a change? I just don’t know.
I am unhappy about it of course. How will I feel afterwards? Will I have body image issues? Body dysmorphia? I say that my breasts don’t define me, but the fact is that having a normal body does. Having sensation and the feeling does. Having the fact that nothing is amputated does that I am whole and everything does. That I am normal.
Will I have chronic pain? Will I have lymphadema? And lower the risk of the latter, do I really have to avoid all the things to could lead to lymphadema?
I worry about many things. Like what if I don’t live the long life that all my family members have? To the age of 90? But even then, I hope that I would have a better quality of life than the long suffering that a lot of family members have had toward the end of decline.
I worry that now I am disabled. I worry that I will have to be less. That in those dangerous situations or whatever, I am at more risk than I was before. That I would have to say….do I have any conditions. Well, yes, I do, I have cancer. It’s not a choice.
That I will be less likely to survive just like all the chronic conditions.
That I don’t have the label—healthy. That I have cancer.
That I am cheating death in this modern society. That a timer was placed on me for death. That I am pushing it further along, because in modern society, I can kick the time further and further away because there are solutions. I won’t have cancer ravaging my body. But I will have so many treatments coursing through my body so much that I can’t feel it anymore.
So many people have cancer. Over the age of 60, usually in their 70s, 80s, 90s. But why do I have to have mine? Especially in my 40s? I didn’t ask for this.
I am cheating death. And it bugs me.
Without a breast, will that mean that I’ll be less likely to survive?
But maybe the other thing I worry about is recurrence. What if a cell escaped and for years it stays undetected and it says oh hello, let’s attach to a bone or liver. Why did it do that?
Just let me live a long life. That’s all I want.