Alison's Breast Cancer Diary
Feelings after diagnosis, surgery, and chemo-therapy

14 December - Post Operation
I was shown how to have a shower. Sit on the stool.  "Clip your hemovac bag (lymph drainage bag) to the towel".  I obeyed, but first looked down at my chest.  Oh.  The bandage was just a bit of white plaster over other little white plasters.  I wasn't bound up and could easily see the suture line from my chest to under my arm pit.  A little further down I saw something else I had never seen from that perspective, at least not for a few decades.  It was my waist and midriff.  Up until yesterday I had two great big boobs hiding that which was lurking below them.  Fat.  Rolls of it.  Oh.  I thought it was really funny.

One of my biggest apprehensions was imagining stepping into the bath for the first time after surgery.  We have a big bath at home and we always bathe together - that's Richard and me.  I imagined crying as I slipped the towel from my covered body and him gasping at the horrific wound silently wondering how he could bear to look at such a disfigured wife.  See how we are influenced by movies and novels.

What a load of twaddle that fear was.  There was my darling in the room the first day after surgery and as I came from the bathroom I showed him the scar and he checked it for leakage and to ensure that it looked like good surgery.  He was satisfied and said it's just nothing.  The loss of that appendage doesn't affect our relationship of course.  Any man who has the audacity to say to his partner that he can't bear to look at her after a Mastectomy is a self centered Pratt.  What an inconsiderate bastard. Definitely only a fair weather friend.  My message to any woman who has a partner like that would be to leave the bloke at once.  Not one of my acquaintances who has had a Mastectomy has been in a relationship with a man like that.  The men I know have been more supportive and devoted to their partners than they have ever been.

I heard of one man leaving his partner claiming it was too distressing to look at her but was also told that their marriage was on the rocks earlier.

Useful websites
www.cancerhelp.org.uk 

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