No one told me that nesting was a side effect of cancer, but for me it spurned a whole list of things that I needed to do immediately. Build a rose garden. Clean the coat closet. Fix the drawer in the bathroom. Get the screens fixed. Teach Darian to drive. Grow grass in the spots that Quinn destroyed. Weed the flower beds. Rake leaves. Organize my sock drawer. Keeping busy kept me from thinking about the lump in my breast and what was going to happen to my body. Every time James touched me, I’d feel myself getting weepy.. One morning I asked him if he still would want to touch me if I lost my breast. He glathered me in his arms, and said that I would still be me, nothing was going to change that.
All those doubts came rushing back after breast cancer surgery. I couldn’t really look at my body and I could barely touch myself to wash. I got one glimpse in the mirror and my chest looked like a battlefield. And I did cry a little, even though I couldn’t quite believe that losing a nipple would be the thing that I couldn’t handle. I thought I’d never be able to take my shirt off in bed again. When the healing began though, I could see the plastic surgeon was a freaking genius and all of sudden I didn’t mind dropping two Franklins at Victoria’s Secret. And I did take my shirt off in bed.
So I guess it shouldn’t have been a big surprise that a hysterectomy would be so upsetting to me. I freaked out over losing a nipple. How in the world was I going to lose all my girly parts? I started to wonder if maybe estrogen was my super power and if I lost it, then what? Would I cease to be a woman? What would happen to my sex life? I’ve already lost so much, I’m not about to give up that too.
Once again, James was there to talk me off the ledge with his kindness and reassuring words and some other things that I’m totally not writing about. But I was reminded that he is traveling this journey with me and I have to trust my heart and not my brain. I hope that having a hysterectomy will help me live a longer, healthier life; because I’m so done letting cancer and tragedy and trauma define who I am.
Just Another Damn Thing to be Strong About 
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