I look for other flat chested women. A rant.
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Just like to say you should be proud to be flat chested, i had one breast removed four years ago and it took me three years to take the plunge and have reconstruction. When I was half flat I used to go out without my horrible prosthesis and I was proud to be a survivor as my flat chest saved my life !!!!
I have made a bra that I would like to get on the market for women who are flat chested, I'm looking for a model to come forward to try it on and pose for my leaflet so I can get it into the hospitals and onto the Internet, all I want to do is help all you women feel amazing like I did when I wore my bra before reconstruction, for more information please get in touch, with this bra you can be back size 32" to 44" cup size B,C,or D !! I'm in bedfordshire England but I hope to distribute worldwide from the Website im just waiting to design, more info to follow about website !! I'm very excited about my new venture as its taken me ages to get the confidence to go for it, I can't wait to see where it takes me on this turbulant journey I have been on ...... More to follow.........
NIKKI x0 -
Thank you for your support ladies. I am trying to keep from falling into total dispair. I have never been fired before. As a perfectionist, failure was never an option. it is a difficult thing to swallow. Through the weekend I wll be trying to focus on my faith and my son (he's 23) and how much he loves and needs me. As his only real family and role model, he will feel left adrift without an anchor if I cannot be a pillar of strength, courage, and optimism through this (at least in his presence). I have to believe that this was God's plan for getting me away from that crazy woman, and that He has better plans for my life. I made an appointment to see a lawyer on Monday, to review the termination package and the release my employer (ex-employer) wants me to sign. I had not planned for him to take over the negotiations, but maybe everything should be sent through him, so that I do not ever have to speak to my old boss again. She sent me a letter by email yesterday stating she has decided she is not giving me the things she verbally promised me when we met last Tuesday. My first instinct was to email her back saying "does this mean you admit you are a liar?" But I refrained. Sorry to dump all this negative crap on you guys - I can't discuss it with anyone in this town or it could risk either my termination offer or my ability to get another job in the area. Hopefully I will have something more positive to say in the weeks to come.
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Djustme...definitely see a labour lawyer. It will be well worth the money.
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Wow Nikki...DCIS with 5 positive nodes and treated with taxol. You really are an anomaly!
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Djustme: REFRAIN from responding. Take everything,including a print-out of the e-mail, to your attorney!! DO NOT COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR BOSS YOURSELF! That's what the attorney does. As an attorney myself, I've had clients inadvertantly do something that cost them. Vent here all you want. I do not know Canadian law, but I do know that once you get an attorney in, you need to leave it in his/her hands.
NIKKI - I know you mean well, but I resent the implication that I need to have fake boobs to feel amazing. I feel pretty damn fabulous now and pretty damn beautiful. And so are so many of the women on this thread who have posted their pictures!! This is one of the things that really makes me mad: the idea circulating out there that we need boobs or the appearance of boobs to feel good and attractive as women. What we need is not more fake boobs, but a change in public attitude and perception. I was cruising on one of the recon sites, and was reading the pain that some of the women are experiencing from expanders. Why are they doing this? Maybe partly because being flat is not accepted in our society. We need to change that attitude, and it starts here.
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Djustme - Alexandria has great advice - use the lawyer and save all communications from the ex-boss. It really will work out.
I sooooo agree with outfield's last sentence - I don't mind hearing the stories of successes. I think it's great when one of us does something and is proud. It's the stories of bouncing through unscathed that bother me, because I have a hard time believing that any of us do that.
The first thing my boss said to me when I told her that I had BC was that when her best friend had it she never missed a day of work until the week she died from it - now that was intimidating. This from my boss who less than a year earlier had started crying at work one day and walked out, didn't come back for 2 months, no communication, just handle it. She wasn't let go because she claimed mental stress from the work environment
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I don't think any of us are unscathed by the bc dx and/or loss of our breasts. But it all depends on perspective. If it is the first crisis you have ever faced, it could bring you to your knees. If you are self conscious, you could feel even more so...or...it could make you less so.
For myself, having lost a teenage daughter to cancer, I might seem as one of those who is unscathed. Believe me. I have had my moments and days. However, for me, the loss of my breasts were a blip on the radar, an adjustment to yet another change, a recalibration of life, a time of reflection.
The fight to stay alive and live a full life is the challenge for me.
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I don't mean that we're unscathed. I don't mean there isn't an adjustment. i also don't want to demean anyone who either wears forms or gets recon. But I still hold that we can be - and are - beautiful and amazing as we are.
Pip, I cannot imagine anything worse than losing one of my daughters. My heart goes out to you.
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Djustme,
This sounds so horrible, but I really do hope it will be for the best. A long time ago, my partner (also a perfectionist, also never fired) worked an entry level job for crazy people at a place that was some kind of weird wholesale dealer of trinkets. She was pretty quickly told she had a managerial future there, which I was so afraid was going to derail her from her longterm plans because she got all excited about moving up in the world of trinket wholesaling. Eventually she got fired for some crazy, crazy thing - the owner thought she was conspiring against her. After the initial shock, my partner was then able to move forward.
I really hope that's what this ends up being for you - a gate out of a bad situation into something better.
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DCIS with 5 positive nodes doesn't make sense. It's like saying a horse with three wings instead of two - horses simply don't have wings. There has to have been a focus of IDC, because DCIS itself doesn't have the ability to mestastasize. It's not that the cells just haven't made it into the lymphatics yet, they haven't acquired the necessary ability to traverse the barrier of the duct. It's a functional change in the cells, not a geographical one.
Pip, I cannot imagine anything worse in my life than losing a child. And really, I can't imagine. I actually didn't mean that I feel scathed by losing my breasts. I do miss them, but not terribly much except the nipples. I feel much more scathed by losing my "mortality virginity." Thinking about not being there for my kids as they grow up is many orders of magnitude worse than thinking about not having nipples again.
I realize I also worded something poorly up there - I don't "feel like a failure" about myself in general. My self-esteem is in order. I do feel like by some standards I've sort of failed the breast cancer test by not being able to move beyond thinking about it so much. Or beyond these boards.
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Outfield, one of the things I am working on right now is timing. Being present to experience, so that I have the experience. Much of what I am going through is, at the moment, difficult. A bunch of it is depression, the mourning of the loss of my breasts, my anger that my choices are not accepted by the outside world, though they are by my family and friends. It is OK to be here and experience this. We are our experience, so acknowledging, even if just to move on and past them is better than what most people do. Give yourself permission. You are doing well and everyone will benefit because you have done the emotional work that is yours.
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Pip...I am so sorry for your loss...
MT, You have expressed what I feel, an anger that my choices are not acceptable by so many. In the winter, it doesn't feel so horrible, but when summer comes, I just don't feel comfortable with breasts, or without. At times I am moving away from the cancer-scary thinking, only to have my own image remind me.
Djustme, I also lost my job. I was a preschool teacher who had certain outlined duties and I just never felt strong enough to go back (cleaning the room, lifting the children and furniture). Private school gets away with what ever it chooses. I am still not dealing with this or processing any of it. Well, when you all post, many many of us learn....
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Don't know if I mentioned it, but I also lost my job. My boss seemed so kind and considerate, very supportive, etc. Gently suggested I go on long-term disability, the HR folks would help me. Said I could come back when ready - they wanted me back "healthy" and to take care of myself. Then after all the paperwork was filed, I got a notice that my position had been terminated. I am the only one in our department on a 9-month contract so I think they can do this. I did see an attorney, and things are a bit unsettled right now, but it was very upsetting. I don't really think I want to go back, and my energy level is so low I couldn't work and don't have the energy to follow up and fight if I need to. *sigh*
Nikibabe, there is something very very odd about your diagnosis and story. And you should review the rules of BCO: there is no solicitation allowed here, i.e. you may not post business-related or attempt to sell products here. These discussion boards are strictly for supporting each other through this very difficult journey. If you have questions or need support for making decisions or for dealing with various issues related to your experience of breast cancer, please feel welcome to participate here, but please do not try to sell or market your product here. And if I have mis-interpreted your post, please forgive me and let me know. Thank you, and best wishes to you.0 -
Outfield, Linda, I hadn't even noticed the DCIS with 5 nodes. Smacking forehead.
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I lost my job, too. As a public defender, I had to schlep boxes of files to court. had fluid retention in my chest and couldn't carry things so was out longer than I'd anticipated. When I wanted to go back, no job. It's just as well. I didn't like what i was doing all that much. I'm now in private practice.
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Pip, I too cannot imagine loosing a child, I guess our reactions are personal and based on past experience, as you say. Cancer really does suck.
I often wonder if I am "burning bright enough", I worry that I am not. I struggle because I can only do so much, and at the same time, I want so much more for myself. I want to be an awesome, prolific, kick butt artist, woman, and wife. But again, as I said before, I am also working on timing. Experiencing what needs to be experienced so that I can be a well rounded person who has done her work. I don't think there is a 'work around' for doing the work that needs to be done. And I know that when you do the work, everything else gets easier, my art gets more intense and beautiful, my relationship expands and opens, life begins to feel manageable.0 -
Hi outfield and mt1, sometimes I feel like I have not been able to pick myself up and dust myself off like a “good” survivor would. I think it is almost inevitable to feel that way because there is so much pressure to put ourselves back together quickly (hair, breasts, disposition). I think the pressure on women in general to be able to smile graciously and look fantastic while working, taking care of the house, kids etc., has just bled (pink) over into breast cancer recovery, because it is thought of as a feminine disease ( and so should be graceful, quiet and modest).
Often, for me, embarrassment or guilt is a companion emotion to any fear or anger about my cancer that I feel. For now, I have decided to just try to observe my emotions rather than judging them (easier said than done), and spend some time exploring where they come from. I think that is one of the reasons I love this thread in particular, because women who are going flat are very “out” in their imperfections, and many times the analysis here of the how, why, where, and who of that experience gives me a different way to consider some of things I am experiencing.
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nikibabe did have a kind of weird diagnosis - I met a woman though who had mets, and they couldn't find the primary, so it is possible, but none of her stuff rang true, I see she deleted her post.
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outfield, mt1 & cooka - I feel that way too. Here I'm almost three years from diagnosis, and no where near "back to normal". I feel like I must be doing something wrong, because, particularly in the media, BC survivors bounce back, it's just a little blip on the radar of their past - but I do think that so many of the news stories are about women that earlier stage cancers, less treatments, not that I'm trying to downplay their BC experience, I'm not, but ...... Everyone is waiting for me to be well again, and I'll never be the person I was before. Too many days it's hard to wrap my head around that and accept it, but I guess that's my problem.
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Linda,
It's possible to have metastatic cancer without a known primary, but it wouldn't be called DCIS. If it were breast cancer in the nodes, it would be possible to identify which type - IDC, ILC, etc -by what is seen in the nodes. That situation is included in detailed charts of staging criteria.
Sometimes people show up with cancer that is metastatic all over the body and it's impossible to tell by looking at the cancer cells what organ they came from, or to find the original tumor. Usually those are poorly-differentiated adenocarcinomas. That's actually common enough that I would bet most posters on these boards could think of someone they've known who had that diagnosis.
Uggh. It's a horrible thing when it happens.
Cooka, yes, I agree.
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Cooka, Well expressed. I am not a "good little survivor" either. Dragonboat races and going to summer (breast cancer camp) are all what seems to be done around here. I'm not into any of it.
LindaKR, I still have quite a time wrapping my head around it all. And recently I have a friend going through the same "diagnosis" path and tests that I went through and it all strikes horror in me to relive talking about it all.
I feel validated by reading all of the responses here...where we can be honest.
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Outfield, you talk of missing your nipples.
I never liked mine, they were big and vague, but I do understand fixating on an aspect of the cancer experience. For me, it is my hair. My new hair is thin (it seems I have at least 1/3rd less hair), with a bald spot.
And you may remember a few months back when my husband got desperate in seeking physical connection with me and made some negative and hurtful comments about my short, boyish cut and androgynous look. From that day, I began growing my hair. But I am not doing it gracefully or from a place of love. I don't connect with myself visually, I don't feel pretty, daring, strong. I feel bummed that my hair isn't what it was. I feel robbed of a cut that made me feel daring and fashionable. I have since discussed my hair with my man and he says that he does not want to be defined by his mistakes and that I should trust him and get the cut I want.
I would like to trust him on this, though I have to say, I am not there. MY fear, and I don't think this has basis in reality, is that with no breasts, an androgynous look, short hair, that my husband will retreat into his quiet place and leave me, first mentally, then physically. Because he does have a hard time making his needs known, and he did make this need known, even if he has since backtracked.
I have been obsessing about the haircut, I keep going back and looking at photos of myself to see if the cut is all I have made it out to be or not. I can't decide. I found a new cut that I like the look of, but it will take months to get it to the point of being able to have it, which leaves me not liking how I look.
Now my hair is a few inches long, it looks ok. I know how crappy growing it out is and I weigh the growth against cutting.
My doctor suggested I try taking Biotin to help thicken my hair and try to fill in the bald spot. I have been taking it for a month, I don't feel a difference and of course, I don't see a difference.
And I guess the bottom line is, I need to decide if my needs about my looks are important enough to make a stand. We got to such a low place in our relationship these last few months that I have been waiting, hoping my thoughts and ideas will finally coalesce, and then I will talk. I can't keep this in because it does feel toxic and I know it will work against me.0 -
Hi MT1, I went from having very thick curly hair to having skimpy limp hair after chemo. I've been taking biotin for a couple of years now at the suggestion of my dermatologist, and my hair has filled in quite a lot. But it took several months (maybe a year) before I noticed the difference. It's still on the thin side, but no more bald spots. I'm a cheapskate, but in the past couple of years I've also been getting high-end haircuts, and they've helped make my hair look more like a fashion statement and less like chemo aftermath.
I suspect your husband would prefer a happier you to having a hairier you ...
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wow - it's nice to know (in a warped sort of way) that my boss is not the only selfish b- that would can an employee after mastectomy - but also a very sad statement on how unsupportive employers are when employees are ill. And how hard it is for us. It's hard to fight back when it's a fight just to do all the 'normal' things each day, and employers take advantage of that. So do insurance companies.
I understand when you speak about the expectation to just bounce back like nothing happened. It seems like it's like that in all areas of a woman's life. We are supposed to (or at least we think we are supposed to) be superwomen. When women started to work outside of the home it was like - ok, but you're still expected to do everything a stay at home mom does while working outside the home, and go to the gym and look great and..... Women have trained men to take on some small responsibilities for the home and children, but with most of the women I've talked to, they feel like a failure if they can't do it all - and by the way - smile while you're doing it! Then you add major physical illness that has a very definite emotional and body identity altering component and we are still feel the expectation to rise to the occasion.
MT1 - I think different women do fixate on different aspects of what has changed about themselves. At least you are aware of what you are fixating on and that it makes you unhappy. In my case it the fixation was/is clothes. It took me a while to work out why - but I guess I irrationally thought that if I could just get the right look I wanted in clothes, that I could somehow make the reality of my situation go away and I would feel normal. Some of us don't just bounce back. We had cancer and we had surgery and the experience changed us. And now I've been fired over it just to kick me while I'm down. I don't think either one of us will be happy until we can fully embrace the new person we have become, or until we can fully embrace the fact that we are still the old person, but a different version of ourselves. If your hair is making you that unhappy, long or short, your husband will not see you as the sexy female he married. We need to take happiness where we can find it. As several of the women have noted on this thread, the brain is the biggest sex organ. We cannot be sexy if we don't like how we look. I have just started seeing a therapist to help me accept that no matter how many clothes I have, my reality will not change, I need to learn to accept me. Then what I'm wearing will matter a whole lot less. I think it is one of the reasons many women have reconstruction. They think they can change reality by trying to make their body what it used to be. And maybe it works for some people, but I know it isn't for me. It's not the outside of me that needs work, it's the inside.
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Oh - did I tell you my MX story, the day before my MX I trained my boss to do the billing for the company, we billed about 3- 4 million $ each month and I was the only one that knew how to run it, so at 4:30 pm the day before my MX - my boss was fired!!! So who was doing the billing from a laptop on drugs on her couch 3 freaking days after surgery - YUP, this idiot right here - and I felt like a failure when they let me go - what is the matter with the way we think sometimes!!!!!!
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Linda: obviously you worked for a terrible company.
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Thanks Alexandria!
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Nagem. I love that. I will become obsessed with being HAPPIER not HAIRIER. I love that.
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I'd like to be both happier AND hairier. I can't imagine there's any reason they're mutually exclusive.
I am stuck with my short haircut. I'm afraid my hair is now too thin to look OK longer, and the other bad thing, the thing that most of you don't have to worry about, is that while I was bald my partner stole my hairstyle. I don't want to look like we're trying to match. Maybe, if the Biotin works, by the time it's had full effect the door will be open for me.
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Outfield, lol on the hairstyle. Actually my brother (who has since become almost completely bald) and his wife did in the past have the same bleached buzz cut. They are also both really tall (both over 6 feet) and being young they wore matching black biker jackets. They came to visit me in NY and thought it was so weird that people kept stopping them, wanting to take their picture, asking what band they were in.
In this house we did have quite a hilarious evening when my husband decided to model my chemo wig. That was a little scary.
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