A farewell to breasts

This title is supposed to be a tilt to Hemingway but I accept it is a bit clumsy. Fortunately I still have one (spectacular, reduced) breast and both my arms - even though my left arm is not quite her old self yet and since my porta-cath (for chemo) was inserted on Thursday, my right arm isn’t allowed to go over my head. I thought “breasts” still worked in the title because I don’t have the plural. If you have no idea what I am going on about, don’t worry you are not alone, ask anyone who has had to go through mental gymnastics to follow a conversation with me, they will sympathize. In a nutshell, Ernest Hemingway wrote a book called A Farewell to Arms and I am trying to be clever.

The novel has some themes that are relevant to farewelling my left breast: war and love and loss.

Throughout my adult life LB (left breast) and her sister RB (right breast) have distracted from ME. Conversations were often directed to them rather than me and on various occasions I have had to ask for attention to be removed from them and redirected to my eyes.

Boys stared at LB and RB at the gym, in the pub, on the street, in court, in the mall - let’s face it, boys stared at them everywhere I went. Once when walking to work as a teenager, a car load of boys crashed into a roundabout so distracted were they by boobs. Fortunately I had long stopped noticing the attention LB and RB garnered or maybe I had got so old no one was looking. Anyway I‘m not one that enjoyed it. Frequently I felt that my boobs were a hurdle to me being taken seriously and I am much cleverer than my breasts would have had you believe.

LB and RB had been at their best in my 20s and 30s - in my 40s I thought they made me look matronly. They were always tricky to cover up. Buttons always strained and sometimes I needed to double bra when I went to the gym.

Anyway, I have been through enough nasty break ups to know that loathing can take over the space where love once lived. You forget all the things you once loved about your ex and the same can happen with murderous flesh. This is effectively LB’s obituary so I will attempt to put my ill feeling about her introducing cancer into my body aside (because that is not her fault, she’s a casualty of the war I’ve waged on the cancer) and concentrate on her good qualities.

In my 30s I befriended two high class working girls at the gym who were often there on the cycles at the same time as me. When I could speak during my interval training, we would have chats. When I was too busy panting, I just listened. They were hilarious and had the best, most irreverent stories - sometimes about blokes in the gym. Anyway one day one of them asked me where I’d got my boobs done because they looked really authentic. I was completely flummoxed. “You know, who’s your surgeon?”

“There is no surgeon” I said, “The reason I spend so long on this bloody stationary bike, practically haemorrhaging out my lungs, is I’m trying to get rid of them!”

”What? Are you insane?” said my questioner “One of my Sugar Daddies paid thousands for mine and yours look better”.

I blushed, we all dissolved in giggles and I was told I was in the wrong job. My boobs could make me loads of money in alternative employment.

So what do I miss about breasts (in plural)? I miss symmetry, cleavage and being whole and pretty. There is no denying breasts are beautiful. I remember really wanting them when I was a teenager - but unfortunately I got way more than was necessary.

LB’s most important job was nourishing my daughter and giving her (and a few other lucky people) a comfy pillow to doze on. LB also accompanied me on 35 years worth of escapades.

I intend to replace LB when my treatment has finished. I do really miss her.

So to send her on her way here are some pictures of LB and her sister taken over the years and I shall end with this quote by Hemingway from A Farewell to Arms because I love it:

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

PS: When I went looking for photos of LB and RB for this blog I noticed that I usually dressed to hide them. I’m quite proud of the fact that one of the times I showed the most cleavage was when I got married in a Catholic Church (it followed on from me wearing a mini dress for my first holy communion). It is fair to say that one of the few things I have failed at is Catholicism (but I do feel guilty about it, so something stuck 🤣).