Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy Read online

  Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy

  Geralyn Lucas

  “The FCC is launching an investigation into the nipple.”

  —Tom Preston, president of MTV, on Janet Jackson’s breast baring performance at the Superbowl

  “I moved to the United States after seeing Baywatch on television.”

  —Sarabjeet Multani, a fast-driving, Punjabi, New York City cabbie, The New York Times, July 17, 2003

  “I’m often taken aback by the phenomenon it’s become—I just don’t believe it sometimes.”

  —Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild. His teams of cameramen ask young women—in return for a Girls Gone Wild tank top—to sign a release form and reveal their naked breasts.

  “Silly little planet. I could rule the world with these mammary things.”

  —Lara Flynn Boyle as Serleena in Men in Black 2, upon landing on earth and causing chaos in her black push-up bra

  “People need to realize that breasts are for more than selling beer.”

  —Tristyn Underwood, nursing her twenty-eight-month-old son, Gabriel, at a “nurse-in” at a Utah Burger King to protest a woman being asked to nurse her baby in the bathroom instead of the playroom

  “The chain acknowledges that many consider ‘Hooters’ a slang term for a portion of the female anatomy. The chain enjoys and benefits from this debate.”

  —From the official Hooters restaurant Web site

  Note to Readers

  Conversations quoted in this book have been reconstructed from memory.

  While Geralyn is deeply grateful to all of her doctors for their amazing dedication, skill, and compassion; she has omitted their names out of respect for the doctor/patient relationship.

  Dedication

  For Moni

  By Christine Thomas

  Gliding down the mountain

  Soaring through the air

  The snow it falls so steady

  It’s sprinkled in her hair

  A young and vibrant woman

  Slowly lost her strength

  It seemed to me impossible

  It seems so to this day

  To have such grace and beauty

  Inside as well as out

  Was such an inspiration

  And now I am without

  This poem was written for Monica Steward, a beautiful young woman who had so much life left in her when she died of breast cancer. She was only twenty-eight years old.

  I dedicate this book to all the women whose lives were stolen, and to all the families who lost them. There was so much more life left in all of them. I have cried for Stacey, for Laurel, for Amy, for Becky, for Julie, for Anne, for Erin, and for Monica.

  I am convinced that it is not about “beating” breast cancer. It is not about positive attitude, eating the right food, exercise, whatever. They were all fighters, and if anyone could’ve “beaten” cancer, these women could have. They were totally kick-ass.

  I don’t know why I lived and others died. That is the worst part for me. I have survivor’s guilt. But, I know their spirits, and the love for them lives on.

  I also dedicate this book to the amazing doctors who put my boob and my life back together again, somehow: Thank you for the work you do every day. Thank you for your devotion to taking care of women and their families.

  And, this dedication is also to all the survivors who have supported me. I am humbled by your courage, your strength, and generosity. Thank you Meredith, Rena, and Jane for all of your guidance and for being my touchstones. I am in awe of all the other one boobed girls, and no boobed girls, I have met who still know how to work it—you showed me a way and you know who you are! You have proven to me that breast cancer survivors are some of the smartest and foxiest women I know. It must be all of that inner cleavage shining through! You know how to strip. You go girls!

  XO Geralyn

  The Lipstick Manifesto:

  Have Courage, Wear Lipstick

  Lipstick—I never used to wear it. I used to be strictly a gloss girl: Bonne Bell. Lipstick was reserved for movie stars, rocker chicks, magazine-ad models, and a certain type of woman that I knew I was not. It felt obvious and too bold and shouted look at me! I didn’t have the self-confidence and couldn’t pull it off.

  I started slowly, with tinted gloss. When I put my finger in the round jar, it stained my fingertip slightly and it felt incriminating. It was in chemistry class in high school. I thought no one would notice there because of all the beakers, chemicals, and the potential for explosions. I checked my lips twice in the reflective paper towel holder when I washed my hands, and both times I was a little startled by how much my lips stood out. That kind of made me smirk. I think my teacher, Mr. Bradley, might have noticed this change because he looked at me funny—either that or he was scared I was going to ignite my notebook.

  The tinted gloss sustained me until college, when I received some red lipstick as a free gift with a purchase. It was something I never would have bought, because it was too sexy for me.

  I got a tissue ready just in case the lipstick looked ridiculous, closed my door, and locked it. I remembered I had watched in awe when other women confidently applied their lipstick in bathroom mirrors. Lips slightly puckered, every single stroke seemed to say, I deserve this. As I glided it across my lips my hand shook a little and I had to wipe it off and start again. Now I had a red smudge around my lips and I was worried my lipstick experiment might backfire and that I would look like a little girl playing dress-up—or Ronald McDonald.

  When I looked in the mirror I was confused. I definitely didn’t look like Marilyn Monroe, but there was something about myself I didn’t recognize. Some sort of confidence was on my lips staring back at me, daring me to live up to this fierce red lipstick I had just applied.

  Something changed when I put on that lipstick that day. It was like a magic wand when I swiped the waxes, oils, pigments, and emollients across my lips for the first time. But then I panicked and worried. Could I live up to my lipstick? Could I own this new power?

  Now, applying lipstick is a habit, like brushing my teeth. I even amped it up. I prefer bright red. It has become my trademark. When women compliment my lipstick they almost always say, “Oh, I could never wear red lipstick, but it looks so good on you.”

  I always think to myself: “You can wear lipstick . . . you’ve never tried.”

  And maybe applying red lipstick is a simple act of courage—to imagine yourself as someone or something you never thought you could be, and somehow, in a carefully applied swipe of beeswax, to become her.

  Maybe wearing lipstick is the beginning of a revolution inside your head?

  1

  Stripping

  I am the only woman in the room with my shirt on at the VIP Strip Club (except for the coat-check girl and she definitely doesn’t count). So I am trying to blend in but it is not working. A preppy guy has already come over and asked if I would spank him. One of the bouncers heard this and moved me over to a more private corner of the club. I appreciate this gesture because I have come here to face the biggest decision of my life, and the disco music was just too loud in the front to really concentrate.

  I have never been in a strip club before, and they would not allow me in without a man. It was more humiliating than being carded. So I waited for the next guy to show up and asked if he would be my escort. At first I was embarrassed, but then I got over it because I need to be here.

  I have come to this mammary Mecca to decide if I can decide to have a mastectomy to deal with the cancer they found in my right breast ten days ago. This was one part of the diagnosis that no one would discuss with me: what it means to have one boob
in a boob-obsessed universe. It seems taboo to actually admit this, or to factor it into my decision about whether I should have a mastectomy. But for me, it is now, strangely, the deciding factor. The argument for having the mastectomy and removing my breast seems pretty obvious—it would be so much safer—until I start thinking about how I will exist as a twenty-seven-year-old woman with one breast. I am not a stripper, but I have always taken for granted that I have two boobs.

  I am scared that admitting that this is my wild card will make me a shallow person. I mean, we are talking about cancer here. So I am here at the strip club to confront the unspeakable.

  Breasts are beautiful, I agree as I plop into my plush purple velvet chair. The view is much better from back here. It is sort of pretty—the room is sprinkled with shimmers from the huge mirrored disco ball swirling overhead. There is purple velvet on the walls and even on the floor. I catch my reflection in the smoky mirrors, and I am illuminated by strange lighting that is dimmed, but more fluorescent than romantic. There is a stage with purple curtains and the disco ball hangs directly above where each dancer stands when she’s announced by a deejay in a booth off stage. The carpeting precisely matches the purple velvet chairs (which I have noticed, if you stare too closely, have stains). Cocktails, cigarette ashes, and maybe some other nasty stuff. I think that’s why they picked deep purple—it hides stains and wear and tear. Yes, this is a high-volume place. Lots of breasts, lots of guys, and lots of noise. I can smell sex in the air, and it smells like a locker room after a football game, covered in aftershave.

  All the men in this room are reminding me of the power I stand to lose. They are here to worship boobs. I don’t think that I’m being masochistic, sitting in a strip club looking at beautiful breasts before my breast surgery. It is a fact everyone has been ducking: Boobs matter. A breast is somehow more than flesh and blood. Everywhere in life, but especially here. This is a crash course, a CliffsNotes on why boobs matter so much. Men are paying a lot of money to look. And acting really stupid. Let’s face it—they would not be behaving this way if the women were on stage pulling down their socks to reveal their ankles. What is it about boobs?

  The cocktail waitress takes my drink order, a Budweiser in the bottle, no glass, because I need to look a little tough sitting in the strip club. I start the pep talk to myself that I have formulated since my diagnosis: It’s pure biology. Breasts feed us when we are babies and it is hard-wired into us to like them, look at them, and covet them. Breasts symbolize a woman’s fertility, so it is all part of our mating dance.

  Somehow this doesn’t make me feel better. Actually, I feel worse. I want to be something men are hard-wired to respond to. I still look young enough to get carded, and I want to be fertile, healthy, and hopefully, able to feed a baby someday.

  But then the other pep talk: Why does my boob matter? At least it’s my right boob and not my right hand. If it were my right hand, then I couldn’t write. I have done just fine keeping my shirt on, thank you. After all, I’m only a 32 A, it’s not like my boobs have caused any major distractions. I will probably keep my job at ABC News 20/20, my husband, Tyler, and my friends with just one. Tyler is a doctor, so he can probably handle a medical condition. Besides, he’s not a breast man—he even had his bachelor party in a steak house, not a strip bar. But that was before we knew that I would only have one boob. Now would he need to come to a place like this to look at two?

  I pay a boob-inflated price for my nine-dollar Bud, and I finally allow myself to look. And I can’t help but stare. I have the prop of the beer bottle now, so I can finally even cry a little and hide behind it. I don’t want to ogle, but I can’t help myself.

  Boobs—lots of them. I can’t describe my longing. There is every model here: big, small, firm, giggly, Baywatch-fake, and yet they are all somehow perfect. The symmetry is what strikes me most—the pairs—like ears, like knees, like eyes, like feet. They are two that go together.

  I am daring myself to keep staring at boobs and that is when I see her.

  “Gentlemen!” the deejay is in his booth, but his voice is booming.

  “The lovely, loveely, loveeeely—Erica!”

  She is on stage to take her turn, to dance her number under the disco ball. I notice her face first and not her boobs. She has this smirk in her eyes, and even though she is taking off her sequined top for strange men on a stage with strobe lights flashing on her nipples, she seems sort of . . . modest? Like she is holding on to a piece of herself that she will not just give away. So many of the other dancers here look cheesy, like a cartoon version of sexy. Some of them look vacant, like they are looking past these ogling men, looking somewhere far away. But she, she is so fiery. She is totally absorbed in the music and I really think she is just dancing for herself. And somehow it is not about her boobs really—it feels so much bigger than that.

  Oops. She definitely caught me checking her out on the stage and I think I am turning bright red. I’m trying to dab my cheeks and trying to wipe my mascara smears with my palms to hide the fact that I have been crying. She finishes her dance, comes off the stage, and walks towards the back of the club right over to me.

  “Can I cheer you up?”

  She must think I had a really bad break-up with a girlfriend. She straddles me and starts to push her perfect mounds of cancer-free flesh into my face, and all I can think about is how beautiful her nipples are, and how I need to cut one of mine off to save my life. I am trying to play along and be cool, but I have never had a lap dance and now that she is pushing her breasts against me it is making me sad and envious. I don’t even care that there are guys staring at us now. I am no longer self-conscious about being a woman sitting in a strip club. I have joined the guys and I am in a booby trance.

  There is something about her and the way she has stripped in front of me. She is holding on so tightly to herself that maybe she is sending me a message? It is like she is telling me to hold on tight and not give it all away. She finally finishes and I notice her swagger as she walks away.

  I cool down, order another Bud, and start to refocus on my agenda. I remember what I said to every male breast surgeon during my appointments: “My breasts mean nothing to me. I studied hard my whole life. I did not get where I am because of my breasts. I will cut them off to save my life. Please tell me the truth.”

  My dad was the one who flagged it. “The lady doth protest too much.” His probing green eyes were telling me to go deeper. I was just intrigued that Shakespeare could hold a key to my boob dilemma. “Of course your breast means something to you, sweetie.” Both my parents are therapists so it figures that I am avoidant.

  But I know why I need to use the blatant disclaimer that my boobs don’t matter. The six male surgeons I have had consults with about my case can’t look me in the eyes. I have long hair, I wear lipstick, and I know what they are thinking. In fact one of them just said it out loud: “It would be so unfortunate to lose your breast. You’re such an attractive young woman.”

  The closest the other five male doctors come to speaking the unspeakable is to tell me the lumpectomy would be easier, it would leave me more “unchanged.” It would leave me with only a small scar—they would have a plastic surgeon come in and stitch me up. So the wild card is there: What would it mean for me to have a mastectomy and lose my breast and a nipple? The nipple part really bothers me. And at the VIP Strip Club all I am thinking is that I could never work here without a nipple. Well, maybe I could be part of a freak show or fetish show or something. But 99.9 percent of men would not pay me to take my shirt off.

  Wait! This is ridiculous! I’ve never even wanted to be a stripper! But now it is really bothering me that I can’t do it. I don’t even want to, but I can’t.

  Things are getting really rowdy at the VIP Strip Club. There are cheers at the next table and lots of high fives, and it is all about boobs. There is such desire in their eyes and in their hearts, and at this point they are all hypnotized.

  That’s when I sl
owly start to feel the power in this room building force, but draining out of me. Like the water draining from a bathtub, the suction is gathering strength, and I finally understand what is ahead.

  Just the way some of the women doctors look me in the eye without even blinking and insist I have my breast removed. In fact, one recommends having both my breasts removed. They are sort of cruel in the way they tell me and seem uncomfortable when I cry. It is as if their faces are saying, “You have a lot more to cry about than just losing your breast . . . you might die.” They don’t want to acknowledge the wild card. Maybe it is easier for them because they each have two breasts that no one is telling them to cut off.

  Halfway through my third Bud, the beer is settling in and I have a buzz and I am pretty sure that somehow I can face having a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy. Because I would never forgive myself if the cancer returned. That, with an open heart and three Buds, feels like the easy part. The harder part is what is happening in this room. Why boobs rule men. Why boobs are a commodity. Why a boob is not an elbow. Why there are such things as strip clubs, where men pay women to see their breasts. That part is as much about my survival as my prognosis. But no one has said that to me—I just know it.

  It is a strange place to finally say good-bye to my right boob, but this whole situation is so fucking uncharted.

  I remember my first training bra and how the hook never stayed closed.

  I remember going to second base in the stairwell after junior prom with Flip.

  I remember my first red-and-white bikini and how daring I felt when Patrick untied the top so I wouldn’t get a tan line on my back.

  I remember when all the girls came back from summer vacation after seventh grade with boobs and I was still waiting.