A year ago

A year ago I had my mastectomy –it has been a long year, filled with anxiety and procedures and baldness and hospital corridors and scary machines. But it has also been a year of hope and friendship and love and caring. In the summer I had the last (hopefully, praise God) step. My “expanders” were replaced with my new—lifetime warranted—real, (sort-of) boobs. Looking down, I’m thinking there is not much to write about, I have a youthful size B and now all I need to do is shrink the rest of my body to match them!

I made a choice to have the double mastectomy. Statistics and some doctors (not mine) argue against the need, but it was never even a debate for me. The plastic surgeon has given me a new pair that I have to say look better then their predecessors, even with the scar that runs straight across. But it is so not about the way they look! I have read accounts from women mourning the loss of their breasts and I can only assume that they are much younger women and I feel for them and I am grateful that I have not had to deal with that too, but I honestly don’t mourn their loss.

What a gift health is. Lately I have been thinking a lot about The Epic of Gilgamesh. If you have not read it, it is one of the oldest written stories ever found in what was once Mesopotamia. In the story, Gilgamesh (thought to be a Sumerian King over 2000 years ago) is very upset when his friend Enkidu is dying. Enkidu is dying from disease as an old man and complains to Gilgmamesh that he did not get to die with honor on the battlefield as he was supposed to. Gilgamesh decides to ask the Gods why this happens and the story becomes a quest for immortality. It is not the immortality part that I think about. It is the truth of the story—so many people do live wonderful lives that are then capped with a long painful disease.

In my journey through breast cancer I’ve shared waiting rooms with a multitude of old people. I’ve loved seeing the couples who come in together, taking small slow steps, supporting each other. Often I’ve seen an old person supported by a daughter or a son. And sometimes I see them sitting there alone. And I think it is awful that this is so often the way a full life ends. And I feel the sorrow and anger and confusion that Gilgamesh felt. Why is this the plan?

In Christianity, the Bible explains it as the consequences of eating the apple. In science, the explanation has to do with logic: our bodies get old and simply wear out, or are confronted with a myriad of potential diseases. This is what being human is, but somehow it seems backward and sad that a full life filled with happiness, productivity and love must be punctuated with illness and pain and procedures.

Still, it isn’t as grim as all that. These very same couples banter humorously with the doctors and nurses. They hold hands and discuss the possibilities for lunch. They are treated with loving respect. Even those sitting alone fiercely guard their independence with a stoic graciousness that is impossible not to admire. Indomitable spirit—this too is being human. Marianne Williams suggests that we are not human beings trying to be spiritual, but rather spiritual beings trying to be human. Perhaps that is the best explanation of all.