Three years ago, my breasts were amputated;

And right along with them, everything else on the entire upper third of my chest.  Nothing but skin over bone was left.  That's it.  I have nothing on my upper chest except skin over ribs.  You can fit your fingers between them--yes, that's my fucking ribs, people.

No, I'm not exactly able-bodied, nor am I disabled.  I fall somewhere in between, like maybe a fucked up body and a fucked up mind.  (No, I'm not a threat to anyone else or myself.)

I refused to be reconstructed because I wasn't interested in up to two years of multiple surgeries to have two unfeeling lumps of whatever trendy goo there is for such things eventually stuffed under my skin with the hope it wouldn't reject.  Yes, implants can and do reject, just like any foreign, or not foreign part of the body moved to do reconstruction, such as a DIEP flap or TRAM flap.  Of course nobody but the patients who have had recon issues admit there can be problems.  (There's also the factor of nothing but skin, which wouldn't hold anything anyway, be it my own transplanted flesh or implants, so it's pointless.)  Besides, do I need two lumps of faux goop to give me shape not matching where they are placed or sitting correctly under my skin or screaming "BOOB JOB" when it's obvious they're fake and don't match the rest of my body?  (So many times these implants wind up being placed badly, or they shift and don't stay where they're supposed to and there's no way to guess if they'll cooperate or not and then it's ridiculous finding a doctor who will admit it's messed up or that said implants should be re-positioned to fix them, or removed and then if the implants don't reject, they have to be replaced every ten years, it changes the game for monitoring after a breast cancer diagnosis.  Yet more surgeries.  No fucking way.)  (In some countries, women who don't want recon are given fucking psych evals.  That's so fucking ridiculous.  It's our bodies, we should have the final say, not a fucking doctor because recon isn't done to save someone's life.)

Don't believe me about the hell that is reconstruction?  Go look into reconstruction procedures and then the failures for the different kinds of recon.  Epic failures.  Let's put it this way.  I've encountered more women who are flat from failed reconstruction than who have had successful reconstruction/replacement of one or both breasts.   If I could get recon done, would I?  Fuck, no.  I'm so not interested in the tons of surgeries for it and all the potential problems that go along with it.

I still fucking hate cancer.  I still hate what it's done to me mentally, emotionally, and physically.  It is a mind fuck, I don't give a fuck who you are, trying to process it is a mind fuck.  Anyone who says they aren't concerned about it or have issues about it upon being diagnosed and at any point is, I think and believe, fucking lying. 

Am I bitter about what was done to me?  You bet.  I think it's perfectly normal for me to have issues with it and someone who claims they don't have issues at some point or another about what is or has been done to them is full of shit, to my way of thinking.  Just the whole thing of trying to figure it out, wrap the brain around how horrible "treatment" is, being horribly sick, and then realizing that it's not cancer that actually kills most people diagnosed, it's what's fucking done to them, the chemo and/or radiation, well, yeah, it's a bunch of shit to try to process.  Things never go back to "normal" once someone is diagnosed.  I cannot imagine how horrible it is to be a child trying to figure any of that shit out.

Three years out from surgery and I still refuse to allow my husband to see me without a shirt.  This is not how I want him to think of me, with two huge vertical gashes of scarring on my now concave upper chest.

Yes, I'm concave.  No, I don't like it.  I was once told by a medical person that the surgeon did a "great job" and well, let me put it this way.  That is fucking subjective.  That fucker left me with severe nerve damage, ripped everything off my chest except my skin, and he did a "great" job?  Really?  The person who told me that had both of her breasts, so it's all in perspective.  Of course she'd think he did a "great" job.  She was standing there with her breasts still attached to her body.  Mine were chopped off and to this day, I still find that questionable.  I was told after surgery there was "nothing" there, so did that breast really need to be removed, along with the other one as a "preventative" measure?   Is it any wonder I'm not more fucked up in the head over this than what I am?  Imagine fucking living with that.  Knowing you were lied to by a surgeon repeatedly, then being told there was no "sign" of "anything" when the surgery was done.  And no, the person who did it didn't do a "great" job.  He lied to me about quite a few things, to my face and he fucking lied to my husband.  I can only hope that doctor is no longer doing this to other women.  What he did was criminal and so fucking wrong on so many levels.

Being concave does not make wearing foobs conducive to my lifestyle, not even the ones with adhesive, my skin doesn't tolerate adhesive.

Yes, I liked my breasts.  I had no complaints about them and neither did my husband.  They functioned perfectly feeding the monkeys when they were babies.  

Cancer is a fucking curse, I don't care who you are and where you are in dealing with it.  It's a curse, it's shit.  Three years out from a bilateral mastectomy, I'm not a "better" person.  I'm not a hero.  I'm not "normal" any longer and it didn't "fix" me in any manner.  As much as I'm certain someone will get pissy about this, I'll still fucking say it and stand by what I've said for over three years now.  Had I known then upon diagnosis what I know now, I would have walked away from the whole shitload of bullshit that cancer is, either have allowed it to take me or tried unconventional (cannabis oil) treatment that wasn't available where I lived at the time, but I would not do any of this again.  I would not subject my husband and our sons to this shit.  (And the residual financial ass raping?  Nope, that's not discussed before someone does get on this road, either, which is horribly, horribly wrong, also.)

Sure, I'm still married.  Sure, I'm still a mom.  No, I'm not the old, normal me.  That person is long gone and will never return.  It's just too fucking bad some people can't fucking figure that out.

Three years now.  According to the oncologist, I'm NED (no evidence of disease) currently.  Will I make it another year?  Will I make it two years?  Some people call this sort of thing a cancer-versary.  Personally, I dislike that and won't do so.  If that works for them, great.  I don't like it, so I don't use that particular phrase regarding myself.

I guess we'll see how far I get.  But for this afternoon, I think I need some barn time.  The horses are wonderful.  (Oh yeah, so is my husband for being willing to still get into bed with me every night in spite of how bad I look.  No, none of this are his issues with me, they're all my issues with me, so don't go thinking he's a dick, because he's not.  He's been great about this whole mess.  A couple of days ago, he kissed me on the cheek and said he was glad I'm still here, so no, it's not him being a dick.  I'm the one who has issues with me.)