Last week my 16-year-old son asked, with some trepidation, if he could see my mastectomy.
I felt overwhelmingly proud of him. For him to ask took courage and emotional maturity - at the same time as being curious I could see that he was also unsure and fearful, squeamish about how the healing wound might look. While I have made it clear to all of our children that I am happy to show them, I have wanted to go at their pace and be guided by them on when this feels ok. Oscar was the first to ask.
This initial reaction was swiftly followed by a silent question that passed between us as a quizzical look. ‘Is it ok, my 16 year old son asking to see my breast?’.
But almost instantly we simultaneously had the same realisation. Of course. There is no breast there. Just a flat chest and a line where my breast used to be.
Until that moment, the scar from my mastectomy had been something almost entirely unseen. Something that anyone might perhaps reasonably imagine would be in some way horrific or disfiguring (it is neither). Something that I have not wanted to demand that anyone look at (not that I have had much chance in lockdown!).
Losing a breast has, for me, been surprisingly ok. I know that for many women it is emotionally deeply traumatic and I totally appreciate that, but it has not been my experience. My breasts have been an important part of who I am and have served me well, but they have fulfilled their biological function. They fed my children and sustained new life. They have done their job, and, for me, losing one will not significantly diminish my experience of life.
But while the physical change does not especially bother me – I am really conscious that other people may quite understandably not experience it in quite the same way. I absolute appreciate that for others it may bring a sense of discomfort, elicit curiosity, fear, or simply be something that people do not feel quite sure how to talk about. For my children, it is perhaps a little of all of these things.
I have massively valued the gift that my diagnosis has brought to reconnect with treasured family and friends - old and new - especially after this crazy Covid year. It has been an absolute blessing and has sustained me.
But cancer can also be a deeply divisive force, bringing in its wake a slowly unfolding sense of separation, a heightened awareness of 'otherness' and a increasing divergence of experience. It has the potential drive a hard wedge into the belly of precious relationships.
At its core, there is a quiet loneliness to cancer. In many ways the path ahead of me feels a very solitary one. Rather than sharing and explaining my experience, it would be very easy for me to choose to retreat into a place of separateness.
But when communicating with a friend recently about her husband's journey with cancer, I was deeply struck by the language she used. Throughout the conversation she talked of 'their' experience, rather than 'his'.
I was curious.
Reflecting afterwards I realised that she is absolutely right. This journey does not belong only to me, but also, intimately, to Rob and our fabulous children. The daily impact on them, both practical and emotional, is profound. Whether from the extra daily workload that each is carrying, especially Rob. Or the limitations on their ability to make plans for the coming year. Or from the dark silent fear of what may lie ahead.
Rebranding it as 'our cancer', and trying wherever possible to talk about 'we' not 'I', softens some of the hard edges and separateness of this experience, pulling us together. Not only does it allow me to share the weight of the diagnosis, but it also prises open a precious space in which we will hopefully be able to talk more openly and frankly about the daily impact that living alongside cancer is going to have on all of us.
Of course, only I have been diagnosed with cancer.
But we are all in this together. I am not alone.
