When I see pictures of myself, I think of my breasts. Was this picture taken back when they were my true originals, untouched by the surgeon’s blade? My eyes are telling too. Who was this carefree girl impervious to such destruction? I don’t like to be touched across my chest. It reminds me of how much I can’t feel. My scars are angry. My nipples are gone… a crude drawing on a misused Barbie doll.
This makes for new mapping in the body and the brain. My husband traces his fingers across my collarbone and I feel shivers. My girlfriends press in for a hug and I try to remember how a hug is suppose to feel, with all the sensation of it heavy in my arms. I am loved and accepted for who I am, celebrated for being here and for putting up a fight to live. But there is an ache in me. My body image has forever been altered, and I don’t think I’ll ever feel whole. (I am more than my body. I am more than this body.) I am cherished by my mate, but I don’t feel desirable anymore. This is something that truly must come from within, and I’m searching…
I make the best of this situation. I make jokes. I gladly will never wear a bra again. I’ll be the perkiest old lady on the block…But these scars are deeper than my skin. Maybe it will all fade with time.
Give it time.
Give me time…
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Published by Melissa Eppard
I am a professionally trained and certified Life Coach with personal experience overcoming cancer as a mom in my mid-30's. After a diagnosis in 2014 I began blogging as a way to communicate with my family and friends, but it soon became much more than that. Writing was my lifeboat and connection with the outside world while immune compromised and healing from surgery.
Now I’m using my personal and professional experiences and living my dream of supporting others as a Healing Hope Cancer Coach. I help my clients understand their options, develop the best care team and a supportive network. Together we unpack the experience of having a cancer diagnosis, processing the emotional impact of a cancer. I offer stress reduction techniques to help manage fear and uncertainty, and coaching to support healing on all dimensions. After treatment ends, I help people find their personal roadmap through the pain and uncertainty, to a life fueled by clarity, personal strength and a connection to their unique life purpose. From diagnosis, through treatment and recovery, no one should go it alone!
I draw upon 10+ years of work immersed in holistic health and wellness. I was born and raised in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York and live there still with my husband and son. My survivorship blog Melissashealinghope.com chronicles my healing journey. You can learn more about my work as a coach at MelissaEppardCoaching.com.
View all posts by Melissa Eppard
Melissa's Healing Hope 
Your writing has such an impact on the reader. It tells your story…your troubles, trial, and tribulations and I find it difficult to not relate it to me. I look forward to reading your posts and, yet, I often feel so selfish relating your words to feelings and experiences I have had and often feel. I really believe that you are such an outstanding writer. Your ability to create this in your readers is such a gift. Your strength and fortitude scream off the page resonating with awesome power.
I love reading your heartfelt comments Barbara. I love too that you are feeling deeply into my words and connecting them to your own life’s travails and triumphs. It really does make this solitary time feel less lonely. It’s true that we all have difficult patches on the road of life. I hope that yours finds some lightness and ease in the times ahead. Best Wishes this new year and always!
So beautifully put into words. Like the fears, the scars lessen (the one inside out outside) and we learn to live with a new normal. I took “ownership” of my scar and my failed reconstruction surgery with an amazing tattoo. (Thank you to Gen “Pistol” of Guts’n Glory in Rosendale!) And it’s given me a sense of ownership, a new sense of who I am now. I know you will find a comfortable place and will move forward from there. Give it time, give yourself love, give yourself permission to feel what you feel.
Maybe that is what I need… A badass tattoo to put the strut back into my groove. Thanks Cathy… as always!