Making Peace With Your Body After Cancer

This summer, while visiting the local outdoor swimming pool, I saw a woman in the corner doing the move.  I was distracted, concentrating on getting my kid and her friend to stop horsing around and get changed.  But this motion seemed so familiar; I did a subtle double take. I think I stared because I usually see the older ladies dressing quite confidently and comfortably in this part of the changing area of the pool.  They have made friends with their bodies (or have at least declared peace). It’s the pre-teens with their pencil thin legs and perky… uh, elbows who always seem to squeal and run for cover.

But there was this venerable older lady doing my move.  Facing the wall, she’s lowered her head and draped a towel over her back as she changes. I know it’s not modesty motivating her because she doesn’t bother to cover her bottom, just (very consciously) her top.  And then as she carefully shifted the towel away before her bra was fully closed, I saw it – a small pink line beginning just under her arm. She had reconstructed breasts. I wanted to dash over and show her my scar exclaiming, “hey, look I got one of those too!” But that would certainly be awkward – and to what end? So I propelled a silent greeting, some positive thoughts with good wishes and go on my way.

I’d like to say that it seems like only yesterday that I was having surgery for breast cancer, but it really feels like ancient history to me now. I was diagnosed at age 28 in 2002. Time has healed my wounds, faded my scars, and time has made a reconstructed left breast feel pretty normal to me. I can honestly say that I hardly ever think about cancer anymore. But it took a really long time and a lot of work to get to this place.

In Sherri Magee and Kathy Scalzo’s book, “Picking up the Pieces, Moving Forward after Surviving Cancer“, they talk about how the side effects of cancer are not only physical, but emotional and and spiritual as well. “Cancer shatters a lot of illusions,” Kathy says. “The illusion of health, the illusion of having control over their lives. Survivors live on a roller coaster of emotions because right next to the intense gratitude for life sits fear and anxiety, even depression because you are not who you were.“1

They write that many survivors experience a dissociation from their physical selves after cancer, and talk about how it’s important to rediscover your body and to learn to live with it and care for it again. Saying that reclaiming your body and adapting to your new physical self are essential to the recovery process.

“We live in a culture that worships physical beauty and perfection. Cancer represents our worst fears of our bodies becoming less than whole, not measuring up to societal norms. There are an infinite number of body shapes, sizes, and features, yet society tries to convince us that only a few of them are desirable. Before cancer, you may have focused on your bodyʼs outward appearance, relating to yourself from the perspective of how you looked rather than how you felt. Now you’ll be turning that perspective inside out and looking at your body differently.” 2

When I had the mastectomy, my worst fear was to wake up without a breast, so I requested an immediate reconstruction. A latissimus dorsi procedure was recommended for by body type.  This surgery involved moving a flap of skin and muscle from my back to fill in and support a small implant. But I had some rotten luck with scar tissue forming a capsular contracture in the weeks following my surgery and I eventually did have to have my implant removed for about a year to allow the reactive area to calm down before attempting another implant leaving me with an odd lumpy void on my left side for at least one bikini season.

At the time it felt like I was having a mastectomy all over again. Over the next few days the breast area filled with fluid and the resulting shape looked better than an implant! It was a perfect tender teardrop shape… and then the fluid reabsorbed and I was left with an odd ripple because of the latissimus dorsi muscle. I began to get terribly annoyed at everything around me: the photos in fashion magazines, the choices of bras and halter tops, the girls at the beach, my itchy prothesis, and the terror I felt about being “ugly” and “broken. I become a little timid with my physical self, freaked out that my divot would show from certain angles. I was worried about how I looked and I was angry at my body. So I pouted for a good long while.

Looking back at it now, I feel that my strong, scary reaction was probably a normal part of the recovery process and something I had to get through in order to move past the pain. The sadness and anger helped me understand what was happening to me – helped me learn where my physical self ended and my true self began.  This is not at all to say that my body became less important! In fact, one of my main pursuits became proving to myself that not only did I look acceptable, but that my body was still trustworthy and lovable.

Reclaiming my body was a multi-stage process. One of the most healing experiences was when I joined a group of breast cancer survivors to model for 2005 edition of the Breast of Canada calendar (month of October). The six of us had a blast in the photographer’s studio feeling a strong sense of belonging and acceptance. I told a TV reporter who was doing a story about us that doing this made me feel proud of my scars. As proud as I was, as much as I wanted to show the world that it was OK about looking like this, I still hid myself in the changing rooms at the pool.

In the years that followed my mastectomy, I experienced a strong need to have my body serve and obey me. I felt betrayed by it. No matter how much meditation or relaxation therapy I did, I still felt like I wanted to challenge and dominate my body – show it who was boss! When the medication I was taking caused me to gain weight, I was lower than ever. But I didn’t give up on the mission.  I worked out regularly, and did things that made me feel connected to the breast cancer world like walking a 60k fundraiser and entering myself and two friends as a breast cancer relay team for the a sprint triathlon.

But I still felt really sad and angry.

As an artist, I found myself creating dozens of plaster casts of my torso and painting them for an art project I called Cancer Xancer. I had four more surgeries to complete my reconstruction and carefully documented the process with art and journaling. The nipple was yet to be completed and tattooed when it happened… I stopped minding. At first I just felt busy, occupied with going back to work, busy with a young child. Then it slipped my mind. Then one day I was showering in the change room at the pool (training to do the same sprint triathlon on my own) when I realized I wasn’t covering or cowering.  I simply was.

I’m not sure when I decided to accept my body the way it was but it felt good when I realized it had happened. And it took a looooooong time. This spring I competed the sprint triathlon in Delta, BC on my own.  It was a 700m swim, 20km bike ride and 5k run… and it felt AMAZING to complete!

~Vanessa

(Republished with permission from the Fall 2010 edition CBCN Network News)