Cancer log 170: Surgery and poetry.

So, the plastic surgeon’s office kind of annoyed me yesterday. On the front desk, they had a ‘woman’s prayer,’ which was all about not sagging, wrinkling, etc. Unsurprising, I suppose. But they also had a framed quote from Maya Angelou:

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

It is a great quote, but I really doubt Maya Angelou had in mind that people would use it to shill for their cosmetic surgery practice. Sigh.

That said, I don’t really have a leg to stand on, since I was there for essentially cosmetic, if reconstructive, surgery. This was the final consult before starting the process of breast reconstruction after lumpectomy — the first fat transfer procedure will be July 7. He’s planning to first go in and try to break up some of the scar tissue that formed after the cancer-removing surgery, and then extract some fat from my lower belly (I have plenty extra there) and insert it into the breast. Some will be absorbed by the body, some should remain. Then we repeat that process again, 3-4 times, every three months, until we hopefully get a breast that doesn’t have a quarter of it missing. The skin should stretch as needed. That’s the theory, anyway.

It’s a fairly minor procedure as these things go, and I should be feeling fine by 48 hours afterwards, he said. Will report back. Mostly I wouldn’t have bothered to do an entry on all this, except the Angelou quote co-opting annoyed me.

That said, I *am* almost forty-five, and I do live in a culture that values and rewards youthful appearance, and I did look at all the before / after graphics they had around the office (I could plump up the wrinkles in my face, or get a tummy tuck (what a cute name for a somewhat invasive procedure), or, or, or… It is a little tempting, I admit. If I could wave a magic wand and get back my 18-year-old body, I’m afraid I would do that in a hot second. Although I do think I’m actually quite a bit stronger and more muscled now, so I would then have to go to some effort with weight-lifting to get that back too. Hmm….I’m guessing I’d be complaining about that too.

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself;

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

– Walt Whitman