Body Image
You Are So Beautiful: How I Grieved My Old Body
How could someone ever look at me and find beauty when I could not find it inside or outside myself?
August 24, 2022
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How could someone ever look at me and find beauty when I could not find it inside or outside myself?
After I had my bilateral mastectomy in 2017, I decided on immediate DIEP flap reconstruction. During the process of explaining to me some intricacies of the surgery, my plastic surgeon mentioned that my nipples would always be at attention – um, excuse me?
My decision to start on antidepressants was difficult, but it changed ME for the better. I saw it as part of my cancer treatment, and not something to shun, disbelieve, or be afraid of.
Living flat wasn’t a choice I thought about when I was diagnosed with cancer. Now I know that it wasn’t only a choice, but it was the right choice for me.
“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
For some strange reason, putting myself first seems selfish. It wasn’t until my aunt passed that I realized I have to put myself first.
If cancer has taught me anything, it is that life is too damn short to cower to my fears.
I am proud to be an Asian American breast cancer survivor because of all the people that came before me. It is through their struggles and their strengths and their stories that I am who I am today. I can only hope to do them just as proud.
Everyone said it was the “best time” to be sick because he was too young to remember but I would watch him play until he got sad and would then ask me to play and I would have to remind him that Mama was sick.
The most important lesson I’ve learned in being a breast cancer survivor is that I can do things on my terms and define what survivorship looks like for me.
