Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy Read online

  “All I want for my birthday is what I already have.”

  That is my dad’s toast to me. He breaks down and starts to hug me so hard. It is his birthday tomorrow. My ending chemo is his present. I was so relieved to finally see my dad cry. I had asked my mom why Daddy never cried about my cancer. It really bothered me because he is so sweet and sentimental about everything: a walking Hallmark card.

  “Geralyn, Daddy cries all the time to me. All the time. He wants to be strong for you.”

  When my mom told me that, it made me realize how hard it has been for all of their lives to go on while mine is unraveling. My poor younger brothers: How has Howard found time to come to every chemo and still study for his law school finals? How has Paul had the energy to call all my friends after every surgery to let them know that everything was okay and still try to make partner? How has everyone been able to be so supportive of me?

  Meredith also made me an end-of-chemo recovery party. I was overwhelmed at my 20/20 party and didn’t know how I could ever thank them enough for believing in me, for promoting me during my chemo, for accepting me with my ever-changing boob sizes and my hat and short skirts, and counting on me more even though I might die. Barbara Walters handed me a beautiful bouquet of flowers at the party, “Geralyn. How are your parents? Give them these from me.” I realize that they have been my eighteen-hour support bra, pushing me up every hour of my day, giving me that lift always.

  Here now in the Victoria’s Secret dressing room I need to remember all of their support. I know why I’m scared to trade in my support bra. Everything has changed, especially my boobs. So how can I ever wear a normal bra again? Will I ever be normal again?

  I thought about what the saleswoman had said about wearing the wrong bra size. She was insistent that most sizing mishaps are purely psychological. She explained that some women are still wearing the same bra size as when they first developed. And others are aspiring to be a certain size but can’t fill it out. I realized that she was right. I needed to trade in my support bra and to adjust to my real new size. I have had to adjust to so much. We have all had to adjust.

  With some Kleenex and prodding from the saleswoman I take off the 18 Hour support bra. It’s a relief not to feel that sturdy firm material pushing so hard against my breasts. But can my boobs fit into a normal bra?

  The miracle bra lives up to its name. I have two awesome mounds of curves. The padding even hides my scar. When I look in the mirror I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It fits perfectly! But the strangest thing is, I finally have cleavage! I never had cleavage—I was always too flat. But my plastic surgeon has fixed that. You go girl!

  The saleswoman is so proud of her work. This might be the best fitting bra that she has ever sold. I needed to take some credit, too. It had been quite a journey to find the perfect fit.

  It feels strangely appropriate to gain some cleavage after everything my boobs have been through, and to have my breasts look hot in this bra. With all my supporters pushing me up, holding me up, propping me up, there was no way my boobs were not going to stand straight up now.

  And along my journey, I had definitely discovered my inner cleavage.

  It was finally starting to show.

  12

  Falsie

  My new bra is daring me to show off my new cleavage. But I have become so used to being invisible that I am not quite sure how to reappear.

  I put on the bra and buy a tight red low-cut shirt. I am getting lots of stares but I feel sort of guilty. Is it false advertising? Is it somehow wrong to want to flaunt my breasts after breast cancer?

  I throw away my falsie. It is reminding me of my past, and when I touch the hard gel I feel the support it has given me through so much. It has been a prop I’ve used to continue in my life and keep going during so many weak moments. It has become like brushing my teeth. Every morning, I popped my falsie into my left bra cup. But I don’t need it now.

  And there are more changes. My black veins are starting to fade since I drank my last cocktail. My hair is starting to sprout back. I was convinced I would be the first woman to never have her hair grow back after the chemo. I couldn’t even imagine when I lost it that it would really grow back.

  But I cannot let go of the few long hairs that have clung on throughout the entire ordeal. Those remaining hairs under my baseball cap have become some sort of strange security blanket. I am reluctant to get any of my long hairs cut. My friend Suzanne makes me. She is a lawyer who specializes in extraordinary ability, and she has a client who has gained his citizenship because he is an extraordinary hairdresser. But can he handle this challenge? I am not convinced there is enough new hair to even cut. And I do not want him to touch the long hairs—they cannot even be trimmed. They have been loyal to me and I still might need them.

  When I arrive to see Thomas, the extraordinary hairdresser, I am too nervous to take my baseball cap off. Since my hair has fallen out, I have even been sleeping with a hat on. Suzanne is there to help me. She has even paid for my first haircut as an end-of-chemo present. Suzanne and Thomas are begging me to take the baseball cap off and I feel like a man holding on tight to his toupee. This cap has been so loyal to me, it feels like it’s become part of me. What will I look like without it?

  When I finally do remove the cap, Thomas is intrigued. There is so much more hair there than any of us realized. He explains to me that there is the “old” hair and the “new” hair and it all needs to be cut to the same length. This is an extraordinary situation and he does seem to know what he is talking about. This haircut is reminding me of the I’m-about-to-lose-my-hair haircut. I guess this one is the I’m-about-to-get-it-back cut. Haircuts never used to be this complicated. It is so crazy that I am the girl who never even liked getting trims.

  Thomas starts to cut and I’m surprised that it takes him as much time as it does. The result is shocking. Suzanne is screaming.

  “No way, no way! Look at yourself!”

  Lucky for me that buzz cuts are suddenly in style because that is exactly what I have. A very micro crew cut. It is so spiky and all my hairs are standing straight up.

  Thomas shows me how I can wear scarves over the cut, and how to put hair products in. Suzanne gives me her scarf to wear out. I tie it over my head and make a knot at the nape of my neck. Tres chic! I am going to meet my family for brunch and I realize that my hair will be shorter than my brother Howard’s buzz cut. It is unfortunate that I am wearing my black leather jacket because I now look too tough. When I stop someone on the street to ask directions, I realize that my voice does not match my haircut—it’s too high and sweet. I need to lower it. I need to start living up to this haircut.

  My family is so impressed and thankful to Suzanne for making me lose the wisps and the hat. It was about time to come out. My brothers and my dad convince me to take off the scarf. But I feel naked. When I show up at work with my new haircut, I have Suzanne’s scarf tied around my head to hide how short it is.

  “Take off that rag.” One of my friends at work wants me to strut a little. I take it off and get a lot of stares and compliments.

  “Wow—where did you get that haircut?” Women on the street are stopping me now. I give too much information and just blurt about the chemo but they really just want to know who cut it. Self magazine even features my new haircut in a “Radical Cuts” article. Meredith leaves an article from Vogue magazine on my desk. “Buzz Cuts Are a Must!” Thank god.

  If I was unsure if I was back, I’m not unsure for long; men are looking at me again and letting me know.

  “Hey, baby. Nice hooters.”

  My boobs are starting to get a lot of attention and it feels as fake as the saline implants inside of them. But somehow, I have earned these cheers. I deserve this attention. I convince myself that if they really knew what I looked like under my bra, what I had gone through to get this cleavage, they would be howling, too. I have earned every wow. But I am so deeply reluctant to inhabit this new body. I am used
to counting only on my mojo. I feel strange getting attention from what is on the outside because I now know how quickly it can leave with no warning. Over the past few months I have found another way to exist and I refuse to get attention from my boobs and hair now.

  I really want to disappear now that I have become visible again. I am hiding at work. I know that I should be flaunting my new look, my new energy, but it all feels so false. I cannot believe that any of it is here to stay. I cannot get attached to any of it, because I am convinced that my cancer is going to come back any day. I do not want to get too used to not having an IV pole in my arm. I do not want to be normal again if I need to have more chemo and surgery. I still might die.

  And I have developed a new phobia: I am scared of waiting. My Uncle Steve and his daughter, Alissa, took me to Disney World when I finished my chemo. The lines for the rides were forty minutes each. I would start to sweat and panic. I cannot wait on line at the ATM machine. When I speak to my therapist about my fear, it becomes pretty clear. I have waited too long in waiting rooms for bad news. I feel I have no time to wait! I cannot wait for anything more in my life, I can’t wait at all now because I think that I am dying. I am so scared because I have stopped the chemo. I am certain that the cancer has started growing in my body again.

  Aunt Honey, my mom’s best friend, calls me when she hears about my waiting anxiety and my fear of dying.

  “Geralyn, you’re not scared of dying, you’re scared of living.”

  She explains that since my life now has such a possible ending, it is a wake-up call that I am mortal, which most people are able to deny. Most people stay in jobs they hate, marriages that are miserable, and just postpone joy because they think they have so much time left to figure it all out. Honey’s advice does not make sense at first, but she is very smart and spiritual and when I start to think about it more I do start to realize that the potential of life is freaking me out. If this is all there is, my one shot, I need to get it all in fast. No waiting.

  I make a list of everything I want to do. But I get scared that the list is not significant enough. There is not enough gravitas on it. I mean, I never wanted to skydive or climb Mount Everest. Should I quit my job, leave my husband, travel the world, now that I might die? How do I live up to this drama?

  I decide that maybe the most courageous thing I can do is to try to return to my regular life, with the knowledge that there is nothing regular about it. And returning to my marriage seems like my biggest challenge. I remember Tyler crying when I was first diagnosed and saying that he was scared I might leave him and how crazy it sounded then. I had been thinking he might leave. But now I understand what he meant. Since everything has changed, how could we remain the same? Tyler has been there for me in his own way. He just bought me an amazing black satin suit with zippers that he told me matched my new haircut, and he was right. But he still hasn’t come with me to my check-ups to hold my hand.

  I could never have imagined the moment when I understood how hard this had been on Tyler. We are in the emergency room, in the same hospital where I had just had my breasts operated on for the last time only weeks ago. My breasts are still tender from the implant surgery. My scar is still raw and bright red. But I am not the patient—Tyler is.

  I had found him covered in blood on our bathroom floor. He had slipped on the tiles and gashed his forehead on the corner of the sink. I knew he was drinking when he came home at 2 A.M. and did not want to wake me up by turning on the bathroom light. I had been worried about him. He had felt so distant lately and I understood why he might need to have a drink to temporarily escape the reality that his wife was being treated for breast cancer in the same hospital where he worked. When I heard the slip and the scream I ran in. I turned on the light. The black-and-white tiles were covered in red. Blood was everywhere.

  I told Tyler we needed to go to the hospital. He was the doctor, but I knew his head was bleeding too much. He refused.

  “Tyler, I’m calling the hospital. This is ridiculous. You’re bleeding too much.”

  He had bled through two of our towels and I was scared he might pass out from shock. I couldn’t believe he actually thought he was okay. It was the same denial he used on me.

  But all I feel is pity when he is finally lying on the gurney in the ER. A few of his friends have come over to say hi and see why we are here in the middle of the night. I have become quite a regular at Mount Sinai, and Tyler works here round the clock, but strangely now Tyler is the patient. It must be especially humiliating for him because he works here. But there are some perks: They call Tyler’s favorite plastic surgeon to stitch up his forehead.

  I am staring at Tyler’s forehead and the needle going in and out of his skin. As the plastic surgeon is making his stitches I feel so bad for Tyler, and for myself. It feels as if our marriage has been split in half, like Tyler’s forehead, like my breast. Like we have been cut open and we are bleeding and the stitches are trying to hold together what has come apart. Will our relationship ever be the same?

  I grab Tyler’s hand and try to comfort him, but I feel so inadequate. I realize that I can’t take away his pain and the stitches and I can’t stop the bleeding. Now I know how Tyler must have felt, watching me in the hospital during all my pain. It must have been even worse for him because he is a doctor and he was helpless. He couldn’t stop the cancer, the pain, the worry. Maybe being on the sidelines is even more painful than getting the needles, the chemo, the surgery? Whenever I complained to my mom that Tyler was not being supportive, she defended him.

  “Geralyn, you haven’t seen Tyler’s face when you’re in surgery. You’re not being fair. I’ve sat with him during those long hours. He’s very worried.”

  Now I can see all of the worry in Tyler’s face. The plastic surgeon is finishing the stitches and he tells Tyler he’ll definitely have a scar there. No matter how good a job he does tonight.

  I think about my mastectomy scar, the long red line hidden safely under my shirt. Tyler’s scar is a red line straight down the middle of his forehead for everyone to see: It is so visible. I feel so guilty that I have made everyone in my life go through hell. Maybe Tyler always insisting that I was cured was a huge vote of confidence? Maybe it was helpful. Because seeing him so scared and vulnerable now is making me scared.

  It is so strange that we both have fresh red scars. We have both been so scarred by this experience. Tyler has been so reluctant to admit his pain and fear but it feels like now he is finally wearing it on his face, as I had wished he would all along.

  13

  I’m a Survivor

  It is my twenty-ninth birthday. One year ago I was bracing for my mastectomy surgery, so tonight I need to prove that I am back. Watch out.

  I am wearing black hot pants and a tight white shirt. I have not worn a white shirt in so long because I was scared it would show my red scar or single nipple. I am wearing my black miracle bra under the white shirt to cover up the flaws, but when I look in the mirror it looks deliberate. I have added some hair products to my buzz cut to make it, too, look deliberate, trying to spike the front few pieces up. I am an inadvertent fashion statement. I had to make my eyeliner darker to make it match the hair.

  I am wearing the patent leather high heels that I bought for my chemo treatments. Instead of hearing them click against the white floors of my chemo office, tonight I will hear them click against the polished wood of a very cool club.

  I could almost pass as normal—almost, because my right eyebrow has grown back slightly crooked from the chemo. And my veins are now light brown instead of black. I will keep my sleeves down tonight.

  I still can’t believe that only a year has passed and that so much has changed. I’ve lost my breast and my hair and my energy and I have gone through four boob blow-ups, four boob surgeries, twelve chemo sessions, and a lot of mental mix-up. When I turned twenty-eight a year ago I was preparing for my mastectomy, but now I’m preparing for a blowout I’m-back-and-if-you-even-doubted-i
t-for-a-moment-here-I-am party. There is one hesitation. What do I write on my birthday cake? Just celebrating twenty-nine feels trite. In my heart I will always be twenty-eight. My life started and ended on that birthday. I decide that I will be twenty-eight plus one . . . and I tell the bakery they need to squeeze that on the cake in hot pink icing and I don’t care if there is an extra icing charge.

  Reluctantly, I have started telling people that I am a breast cancer “survivor.” It is so different from saying, “I have breast cancer.” But am I really a survivor? Suppose that I don’t survive? Everyone keeps telling me that I “beat” cancer but I know that it is out of my hands. Will I let my family and friends down if I die? All I want to do is hit thirty.

  I need to practice being a survivor. I get the chance when two amazing women, Donna and Porter, invite me to join their “2 Chicks, 2 Bikes, 1 Cause” project. It’s my big chance to come out as a survivor. They are riding their bikes across the country to educate young women about breast cancer. My cousin, Mira, tells them about me, and I agree to fly out to their kick-off event in Seattle.

  When Rena first reached out to me when I was diagnosed, she made me promise her that I would be there for other women who had just been diagnosed the way that she was there for me. She was a stranger to me when she first called, but her voice gave me so much hope. It was my lifeline. I know that I need to start telling the story of finding my lump when I was only twenty-seven. Maybe the only way to make sense of what has happened to me is to save some other woman’s life?