Going Flat

My FLAT Essay in “O, The Oprah Magazine”

My essay, “Learning Curve,” about going flat after breast cancer and how the decision complicated my relationship to fashion is in the March 2017 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine! A big THANK YOU to the editors at O for publishing an essay by an openly queer writer, an essay that pushes against the mainstream narrative of reconstruction.

I’ve been writing for women’s magazines for nearly 20 years and this is the first time I’ve been allowed to be “out” in an article for a women’s glossy. In the past, any reference to my queerness or my same-sex partner would be edited out either for “space” or because “our readers can’t relate.” Thank you Oprah editors for helping to dismantle this barrier in women’s media.

About this essay: the assignment editor asked for personal essays from writers who felt like their sense of personal style (internal) didn’t align with their fashion choices (external). I chose to write about how my flat chest means that I present to the world as a tomboy, even though I feel very feminine on the inside.

Here’s an excerpt from my FLAT pitch:

In the weeks after my surgery, I took to wearing bulky sweaters. My preferred post-mastectomy colors were black and charcoal grey as they best camouflaged “the situation,” a phrase I adopted from the reality show Jersey Shore. In those first few months I tried to shop for new clothes but nothing feminine fit “the situation” because, of course, women’s clothing designers assumed that women have breasts. Material meant to cover a normal woman’s curves would gather and bunch on my chest like two wilted corsages. Tailored tops and jackets with darts were a non-starter. Breast cancer patients in online forums advised women like me, women with misshapen chests, to wear small, busy patterns, such as zigzags, houndstooth, and even tie-dye. A month after my double mastectomy, I took their advice and bought a tie-dyed shirt off the clearance rack at Target in Bloomington, Indiana. I wore it for the rest of the summer.

Here’s a pic of the essay in the magazine.

 

What’s Missing from the Mastectomy Conversation?

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For Pinktober Self Magazine featured photos from AnaOno Intimates, a company that makes lingerie for women who’ve had “breast cancer-related surgeries.” When the article came across my Facebook feed I clicked because, YES, of course I want to celebrate a company making bras and undies for breast cancer survivors!

But when the first gorgeous, gauzy photo of a woman popped up on my screen my heart sank. Her lovely lingerie-covered breasts looked nothing like my post-mastectomy body. I slowly began to scroll through the five portraits. “Please, please,” I muttered, “please just let one of these women be flat.”

Nope. Each of the five women in the article had a pair of full, lovely, curvy breasts.

Surely, I am not the only breast cancer survivor who is hungry for representations of women proud of their misshapen bodies. Nearly 40 percent of women in the United States who undergo mastectomy for breast cancer choose not to reconstruct, according to a study published in February 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. That’s 4 in 10 women. Other studies suggest the number is even greater. So where are these women? Are they in the self-congratulatory pages of Self Magazine? No.

Can we please stop rubber stamping homogenous femininity onto the bodies of breast cancer survivors?

The failure to portray a full spectrum of survivorship, in my mind, is not AnaOno’s because the company does have a picture of a flat-chested model on its site. The failure belongs to the magazine. Once more, a major women’s magazine narrowed its vision to see (and show) only women who chose full-on reconstruction. I’m a magazine journalist, I get it. Visibility is good. But I just have one request: can we PLEASE broaden the spectrum of what we make visible?

A Happy Pink Story: The World Wants What It Wants

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In his essay “On Homecomings” for The Atlantic Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote was about his deep longing to move back to his old Brooklyn neighborhood and how his plans were thwarted by celebrity-chasers. About the mining of his privacy for a gossip rag, he wrote: “If the world wants a ‘writer moves to Brooklyn Brownstone,’ story, it’s going to have one no matter your thoughts.”

On the eve of Pinktober, this sentence struck me hard because I’ve had a similar experience with breast cancer.

The world likes a breast cancer survivor with good-as-new breasts, but that is not my story.

I chose not to reconstruct because I didn’t want to sacrifice a back muscle to create what the plastic surgeon referred to as “a breast-shaped mound.” Now, seven years later, I’m not arguing against reconstruction. I believe women need to be fully empowered to make any and all choices about their bodies. But a fully informed choice is predicated on having all the options.

A lot of women take comfort in the happy pink story “no matter your thoughts.” But I can’t help but wonder how many women don’t yearn for a story with an alternative ending. In the weeks after my breast cancer diagnosis, I saw four surgeons and not a one mentioned going flat was an option for me. Going flat isn’t every woman’s choice but it needs to be on the menu.

Like fairytales reimagined with strong girls who don’t need to be saved by a prince, I’m hoping my story about a breast cancer survivor who didn’t need to re-create her breasts to feel whole again, to feel like a woman again, will be a refreshing update to a stale ending.

Going Flat: The Choice No One Talks About

Why does no one talk about going flat?

I watched the Angelina Jolie breast cancer coverage the same way I watch scary movies — with my eyes covered. As I peeked at the news through fanned fingers, I was pleasantly surprised at how everyone handled themselves. (I’ll save my thoughts on the portrayal of “celebrity madonna figure cuts off breasts for the children of the world” for another day.)

My critique is twofold: One is that the discussion glossed over the pain, complication rates, and loss of sensation across the entire chest (not just the nipples) that reconstructive surgery entails. Two is that there is a far less complicated way to move past a double mastectomy that no one ever talks about: going flat.

Of course, Jolie’s livelihood relies, in part, on her breasts. So I can’t imagine that was an option for her, but it is an option for other women who are considering double mastectomy.

The “save the rack” mentality shared by so many in the breast cancer community can make it difficult for women to see a way forward that doesn’t involve reconstruction. In the weeks following my breast cancer diagnosis in 2009, I saw five surgeons. Each one approached me with the assumption that I wanted a new breast at any cost. (More on that in Part 2.)

As a science writer who specializes in women’s health issues, I’ve written extensively about breast cancer. As a patient, I saw how easy it was to go down the road to reconstruction. But I can also tell you that road is paved with the good intentions of doctors and pockmarked with huge piles of shit, most likely left by all those ponies and unicorns prancing around inside the minds of plastic surgeons and women alike.

As I yearned for balanced coverage, I was excited to see last week’s article in The New York Times “No Easy Choices on Breast Reconstruction.” The paragraph below tiptoes as close to the truth as any I’ve seen in mainstream media:

Even with the best plastic surgeon, breast reconstruction carries the risks of infection, bleeding, anesthesia complications, scarring and persistent pain in the back and shoulder. Implants can rupture or leak, and may need to be replaced. If tissue is transplanted to the breast from other parts of the body, there will be additional incisions that need to heal. If muscle is removed, long-term weakness may result.

This paragraph echoes what I’ve been told by dozens of breast cancer surgeons and patients alike. I also experienced the imbalance firsthand. None of the plastic surgeons I consulted said anything about complications, pain, and the possibility of muscle weakness. No one asked if I had a history of back pain (I do) or fused vertebrae (I do) both of which may increase odds of complications, like chronic muscle pain and reduced mobility. The public hears a lot about successful reconstructions, like Jolie’s, but we rarely hear the stories of women who are disfigured and debilitated by reconstruction.

Recently, I was assigned a feature about breast reconstruction for the digital magazine VIV. In that piece, I strove to reflect something more akin to reality. The final magazine feature included most of the following facts and figures:

  • The majority of women—55 percent—don’t reconstruct at all; they choose to either to wear a prosthetic or go without.
  • Women who have immediate (versus delayed) reconstruction are 2.7 times more likely to have a major complication, like tissue death, and are less satisfied with the final result.
  • Among women who choose implants, 30 percent will have complications, such as a hardening of the tissue around the implant (called capsular contraction) in the first year. Within four years that number may exceed 50 percent.
  • The Food and Drug Administration advises women with silicone-filled implants to get an MRI every two years to check for leaks. Not all insurance companies pay for the follow-up scans, which can easily cost a thousand dollars or more.
  • Tissue transfers are extensive surgeries with long, arduous recoveries. They require up to 9 hours in the operating room and up to a week in the hospital, including a day or two in intensive care to monitor blood flow to the new breast.
  • Tissue transfer studies are rare, but in one well-designed trial, 36 percent of women who underwent the most common tissue transfer surgery (called a TRAM flap) had a major complication.
  • A study published in 2010 in the journal Annals of Plastic Surgery found that many women who had tissue transfers felt ill-prepared for the loss of muscle strength, numbness, and extent of scarring.

And, call it personal bias, but I found it reassuring that long-term studies show that 5 and 10 years out, women who had a mastectomy without reconstruction were thrilled with their decision.

I’m glad that Jolie is inspiring women to get tested. The public needs to see smart women empower themselves to get information and act on it. I just wish women had a greater variety of role models to choose from in this realm. Women who chose less-invasive options and are living happily without boobs.

Flat: Womanhood reshaped

(This post about going flat has been in the works for a couple of years now. As I dust off my blog, I thought I’d go ahead and send it up.)

Up until they were amputated, I didn’t give my breasts much thought. Like any other body part, they’d been mine for as long as I could remember and, frankly, I found them rather anticlimactic. I dressed them, undressed them, and washed them in the shower.

No big wup.

Occassionally I’d wonder what it would be like to have the kind of breasts I see in the movies. I’d watch a starlet’s double DDs burst out the top of her gown, like my iris bulbs heaving themselves unceremoniously out of their beds each spring, and I’d wonder “wowza, what would it be like to have a pair of those pups?”

But mostly, my feelings toward them vacillated from indifference to annoyance. They annoyed me because I hated wearing a bra, especially in the summer. I wanted the freedom to walk my dog to the park wearing nothing up top but a cool, wispy T-shirt. But, too embarrassed by the bounce-factor, I’d pull on a bra, sure to be damp and sticky within 5 minutes and squeeze my chest like an anemic boa constrictor.

Given my ho-hum attitude toward my breasts, I was (and still am) shocked at the depth of sadness I feel by their passing. The double mastectomy wiped my chest clean. If it weren’t for two, neat scars, you’d never know they’d existed at all. I wonder if I’ll forget what they looked like, like the fading memory of a past lover.

Dana Jennings, my favorite NYT blogger, wrote here about how his erectile dysfunction (a side effect of prostate cancer treatment) made him reconsider what makes a man. The one sentence that resonated most deeply for me is: “I’m just trying to understand, trying to articulate, what it feels like to be damaged goods in our oversexualized culture.”

Some days I feel like damaged goods. Those days are often sparked by a look in the mirror. As both a yogi and a yoga teacher, I spend an inordinate amount of time in mirror-lined yoga studios, dressed in tiny tank-tops, surrounded by other women in tiny tank tops…most of whom are under 30 and all of whom have breasts. Now, I’ve always had a pretty healthy body image, but, on a daily basis, this scenario can kick my sense of womanhood in the teeth.

Of course, as Jennings points out, being a man or a woman is about much more than the fleshy bits. But, in a culture obsessed by the fleshy bits, being without them makes me feel “less than” in some intrinsic way. The deep sense of loss I felt after my surgery and continue to feel shocked the pants off me. At least once a day, I am caught off-guard by a stabbing sense of sadness.

I still avoid looking in the mirror when I step out of the shower. And trying on clothes in women’s dressing rooms is like entering the 6th circle of Hell, between the flourescent lights and the fact that the article of clothing I am about to slip over my head may fit nicely or it may droop listlessly, extra material bunched like two flat tires pinned to the front of my chest. I have fleeting moments of wondering what reconstruction would be like. Wondering if I would be happier. Wondering if it would be fun to have bigger breasts than I had before. But then I slip on a cool, crisp T-shirt leash the dog and walk out the door reveling in my new found freedom.