I have a divot in my forehead.
My wife has a divot in her side. Both sides, actually.
Breast cancer – skin cancer in my own experience – is all about divots.
Define divot (plural divots)
1.A torn up piece of turf (e.g. by a golf club in making a stroke or by a horse's hoof).
2.A disruption in an otherwise smooth contour.
It’s the second definition that concerns me here.
After discovery and confirmation four years ago this week, the breast cancer specialists we were working with looked at several options. One of them, used in cases where the cancer was discovered early and was small, is called a “lumpectomy”. In this procedure (I was just struck this MOMENT by the sterility of this word. It sounds so clean and simple. Like when I did “cookbook labs” as a science teacher. It involved steps students would follow to achieve a very specific result. For lots of kids, it involved reading and rereading the procedure, their finger under the step they were following so they could get it “right”. Lumpectomies are nowhere NEAR this simple and involve invasive methods that deform the breast...) “Lumpectomy is the removal of the breast tumor (the "lump") and some of the normal tissue that surrounds it.
Lumpectomy is a form of “breast-conserving” or "breast preservation" surgery. There are several names used for breast-conserving surgery: biopsy, lumpectomy, partial mastectomy, re-excision, quadrantectomy, or wedge resection. Technically, a lumpectomy is a partial mastectomy, because part of the breast tissue is removed. But the amount of tissue removed can vary greatly. Quadrantectomy, for example, means that roughly a quarter of your breast will be removed. Make sure you have a clear understanding from your surgeon about how much of your breast may be gone after surgery and what kind of scar you will have.”
While this makes an attempt at realism, nothing can quite convey the results but a person who experienced it.
My wife had a double mastectomy which is the most extreme form of breast cancer surgery possible.
I can NEVER know what that’s like. I can only imagine it.
Since my own skin cancer surgery, I’ve had a tiny, non-life-threatening taste of what it might possibly feel like to have a lumpectomy. One of the cancers on my face was on my forehead. Using the Mohs procedure (described here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2014/11/guys-gotta-talk-about-9face-and-breast.html) layers of tissue that have cancer cells are removed, tested, then the incision is either closed or another layer of cells are removed and tested. The end result, after healing and recovery, has been a “divot” in my forehead. Touching it right now, I can ASSURE you that it is gigantic and I’m positive everyone sees it but out of politeness, ignores it.
Right. I work in a high school. Politeness is something we work on in our kids every day because about half of them have never experienced it at home. If anyone noticed a divot in my forehead, they’d tell me. Ergo: it’s not noticeable.
My wife had me look at a small lump on her left side, asking, “Is this one of the places that the drains went in?” A matched spot above it confirmed that it is, indeed, the place where one of the drains exited the surgical field four years ago. She also has a scar where the port was placed in order to do chemotherapy.
Lumps. Bumps. Divots. Scars.
These are clearly the legacy of breast cancer – of any kind of cancer. I’m sure plastic surgery could clear up many of them, yet I feel no compulsion at all to GET the surgery. I wonder why...
Sorry for the rambling commentary. But that’s where I’m at today...
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