In the four weeks since surgery I've had some time to perfect my response to the question which has been foremost on the minds of others: "What's it like to be down one breast?" (in actuality, the question posed has been the safer, more tactful, "How are you?") Although my response is sure to morph with time, I think it can best be summed up as follows: Cancer got my breast, but it didn't get the breast of me. Sure, my rogue breast took a hit for the rest of my body, but I am still here, I am still me, and I am still (in my own mind, anyway) a healthy woman in her late thirties. Ok, very late thirties. Oh, stop it! You may be surprised to learn that my grieving happened long ago, just prior to and around the time of diagnosis, when all of the initial breast changes had already occurred. Since that time, I have simply accepted that the tumour was too big to allow the breast to be salvaged. Removing the breast meant removing the tumo
from kegels to chemo and beyond