Fw: Who Needs Breasts, Anyway? Bravo, Molly Ivins!

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From: " Ilena Rose " <ilena@...>

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Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: Who Needs Breasts, Anyway? Bravo, Molly Ivins!

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020218/ivins.html

EXCERPT: As a final indignity, I have just flunked breast

reconstruction. Bad enough that I went through all that pain for the sake

of vanity, but then I got a massive infection and had to have both

implants taken out.

Who Needs Breasts, Anyway?

By Molly Ivins

Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate

you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates

better than that.

One of the first things you notice is that people treat you differently

when they know you have it. The hushed tone in which they inquire, " How

are you? " is unnerving. If I had answered honestly during 90% of the nine

months I spent in treatment, I would have said, " If it weren't for being

constipated, I'd be fine. " In fact, even chemotherapy is not nearly as

hard as it once was, although it still made all my hair fall out. My late

friend Jocelyn Gray found the ultimate proof that there is no justice:

" Not just my hair, but my eyebrows, my eyelashes ~ every hair on my body has

fallen out, except for these goddam little mustaches at the corner of my

mouth I have always hated. "

Another thing you get as a cancer patient is a lot of football-coach

patter. " You can beat this; you can win; you're strong; you're tough; get

psyched. " I suspect that cancer doesn't give a rat's ass whether you have

a positive mental attitude. It just sits in there multiplying away,

whether you are admirably stoic or weeping and wailing. The only reason to

have a positive mental attitude is that it makes life better. It doesn't

cure cancer.

My friend Judy Curtis demanded totally uncritical support from everyone

around her. " I smoked and drank through the whole thing, " she says. " And I

hated the lady from the American Cancer Society. " My role model.

The late Alice Trillin wrote some brilliant essays on being a cancer

patient, and I found her theory of " the good student " especially helpful.

When you are not doing well at cancerãbarfing and getting bad blood tests

and generally not sailing through the whole thing with grace and

panacheãyou have a tendency to think, Help, I'm flunking cancer, as though

it were your fault. Your doctor also tends to look at you as though he is

disappointed. Especially if you start to die on him.

You don't get through this without friends. Use them. Call them,

especially other women who have been through it. People like to help. They

like to be able to do something for you. Let them. You will also get sick

of talking about cancer. One way to hold down the solicitous calls is to

give your friends a regular update by e-mail, if you have it. If you work,

I recommend that you keep right on doing so (unless you hate your job).

Most companies are quite good about giving you time off when you need it,

and working keeps you from sitting around and worrying.

Losing a part of a breast or all of one or both has, obviously, serious

psychological consequences. Your self-image, your sense of yourself as a

woman, your sense of your sexual attractiveness are going to be rocked

whether or not you have enough sense to realize that tits aren't that

important. I am one of those people who are out of touch with their

emotions. I tend to treat my emotions like unpleasant relativesãa

long-distance call once or twice or year is more than enough. If I got in

touch with them, they might come to stay. My friend Mercedes Pena made me

get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as

I suspected, they were awful. " How do you Latinas do thisãall the time in

touch with your emotions? " I asked her. " That's why we take siestas, " she

replied.

As a final indignity, I have just flunked breast reconstruction. Bad

enough that I went through all that pain for the sake of vanity, but then

I got a massive infection and had to have both implants taken out. I'm

embarrassed about it, although my chief cancer mentor, Marlyn Schwartz

(who went to the Palm for lunch after every chemo session), has forbidden

this particular emotion. So now I'm just a happy, flat-chested woman.

Molly Ivins was found to have Stage III inflammatory breast cancer in 1999