What should you feel?

My surgery is over. I am back at work. In the grand scheme of things, the whole process has, to date, felt like it was happening to someone else. And I'm still wondering what I should be feeling.

I mean, I feel the results. I see them. I even smell the results.

Yes, it's true. When you have a breast removed, and some lymph nodes, they don't want you to use powder or fumigants or any other thing (like deodorant) that might clog your underarm pores. Needless to say, I can smell myself and to be honest, I am not fond of the smell of my underarm! TMI, as my daughter would say?


I really don't know if the feelings I have are healthy or not, because of how distant I seem to be from most of them.

Maybe the healing process doesn't really begin until you have received the "cancer-free" seal of approval. I don't know. I do expect to get to that stage. But until I do, I wonder if this feeling of NOT feeling like it is happening to me is a defense mechanism -- that state of denial in the stages of grief -- just to get through it?

Of course, I would like to think that I am just totally well-adjusted and able to take anything thrown my way. But I'm also smart enough to know that I am not as well-adjusted as I like to pretend I am.

But maybe the pretense is half the battle?

That's my theory today, and I'm sticking with it, until it doesn't work anymore! (That's the beauty of these personal "traumas." You can play a role any way you want, as long as it works for you.)

And I'm going to reiterate my yearly mammo plea! I AM THEE yearly mammo poster child. I mean, I went from a "good" mammo last year to,  "We're gonna have to take your boob because you have three cancerous spots" status this year. (Although that last cancerous spot we did not KNOW to be cancerous until AFTER the removal.)

If I can help just one other person with my yearly mammogram plea, I will be happy.

Get 'er done, ladies!!!! Your life may depend on it.

Dawn