Date for surgery, reality sets in

I got the date for my surgery, December 12. It's really going to happen!

I saw the oncologist today and that brought up the reality of maybe having to have chemo after the surgery. He will know after we get the results from the pathology of my lymph nodes. I really don't want this to go "that far".

I saw a book in the waiting room of artwork by breast cancer patients called "expressions of a womans cancer journey". One of the words that stood out for me was "mutilation". For some reason I identified with it. But what came up for me was that I have felt that my body was mutilated from the time I got horrible stretch marks from pregnancy and my husband at the time told me how gross they were to him. He also told me my breasts were ugly. I can remember standing in front of the mirror a month or so after giving birth to my daughter, and he came up next to me to express these things.

Also, for all my life, I have picked at myself, literally making wounds on my body. I don't cut myself, but I think it comes from the same place. It just feels "right" when I do it. It's like "my body is already mutilated, so I am just doing what it wants......" In the last 10 years, since my life started falling apart, and i started getting old, with skin hanging, getting fatter, I saw no reason to do anything about it because it just is what it is.....ugly. No man is going to love me anyway, so keep digging at my skin, getting some kind of momentary pleasure from it. It is like an addiction. But when for a moment I may think how bad I am going to look, I consider I already look so bad, so what? It is hard to put words to what the feeling is. All I know is that it "takes me away, or takes me into myself, or something like that". It is a very shameful feeling when I pick at myself, and unfortunatly the scars can be observed by others and I don't want that to happen.

So whats the big deal of having no breasts???? Now I can really have an excuse for why no man would ever want me! The idea of dealing with a relationship is much worse than not having my breasts. So maybe it makes me feel even more safe. I don't ever want to "want" a man and face rejection ever again.

The one man that didn't reject me was my last husband. But he "used" me, and that didn't feel like love, so I was rejected by him, not in words but by the way he treated me. Being single is so much easier. It is lonely, but I have learned to live alone. I like being alone and making my own decisions about my every moment. I can choose for myself. Having my good friend Jeanne and my son is almost enough. But if only my daughter could love me, life would be pretty damn good. Each day that she doesn't get ahold of me makes me wonder how she can be so.......unfeeling