Monday, October 11, 2004

Breast cancer survivor

I have a breast cancer patient who's not very happy with how her breasts look after all the treatment she's gotten. She's had reconstructive surgery with implants, but the results are not great.
What can you say? I was happy she was still with us after what she's been through, but I couldn't honestly look her in the eye and say everything looked normal.
So blame society. Mardi Gras. Topless beaches. Playboy. HBO. Breasts are attractive.
I think part of the struggle with cancer, even good-prognosis cancer, is that it leaves people at something less than 100% of what they were before. Also, some people never really wanted to have to contemplate their mortality, but were forced to anyway. And now that the journey got less complicated after treatment is over, the knowledge that they are lucky to have danced with cancer and lived is often balanced by some sort of physical reminder of their ordeal.
Maybe that's the real problem--the physical reminder. Maybe she doesn't want her old body back, but she doesn't want to have to think about having had breast cancer everytime she looks in the mirror.
So maybe the response is, "I can understand it must be hard being reminded about your cancer when you look in the mirror." She's angry about having had cancer, and I can't really make her not angry anymore, but I can show I care.