In my adolescence, I was obsessed with breasts. My own, that is. I wanted them, and when they arrived, inundated as I was with the trash gender norms of the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I wanted them bigger, higher, perkier, and then some. I wanted to be like my first wife: Janet Jackson, who had the body I was determined to have — slim waist, 8 pack abs, and mammary glands to die for. (If for even one second your mind drifts to the rumor that she had ribs removed, exit this tab right now; we’re not kin.)
As I moved through college I became less concerned with the “feminine exterior” I had been taught to display and leaned into the deep, long-standing masculine energy I often kept under wraps. In doing so, many physical attributes, like breasts, became less important to me. In fact, they became an annoyance, a bother that even caused my clothes to rest and shift in ways I did not desire, bringing attention to a form I no longer wanted.
Piercings, jewelry, simple yet effectively flattening bralettes, and calling my breasts “chesticles” helped momentarily, but in the end, I still felt no connection to them. I explored surgery options, but always second guessed myself. So they remained, and I tolerated them. I tried learning to accept my breasts through constant touch and engagement. I tried talking to others who dressed and moved through the world like me about their comfort with their breasts, straining to ingest their confidence. Not much worked besides doing push-ups to broaden my chest and arms.
Fast forward to 2020: My chesties and I were lying across a friend’s couch watching a movie when I mindlessly ran my hand up the inside of my cut off t-shirt, then along the ribs lining my chest. I felt something weird — new, discrete, though very present. Something I had never felt in all the years I’d spent poking and prodding and tapping them. The presence was hard and edgy, like a small concrete pebble. When pushed, it summoned a surprising tenderness that sent shock through the left side of my body.
It had my attention immediately. Having found a lump in my partner’s breast a mere seven months earlier, I knew the next step: doctor’s office.
Having the privilege of being raised by a physician, I am very comfortable in medical spaces. Still, advocating for my own needs has always been a struggle. I was raised to be a codependent nurturer, so I tend to others better than I tend to myself. When it was my partner in the examining room chair, I was able to make sure she was getting the care she needed. Finding myself in the same situation, I felt vulnerable. After the physician performed a “thorough” breast exam, finding “nothing of concern,” a part of me wanted to believe the pebble was gone, that I imagined it all along.
My spirit knew better. So I meticulously searched my chest until I found it, small yet very much still there. I showed it to the doctor, who remarked, “It’s good that you know your body,” as if complimenting my knowledge would excuse the fact that they had missed it altogether.
We’re taught to rely on the wisdom and skill of doctors as the final word in the status of our health. But they, just like the rest of us, make mistakes. Unfortunately, these types of oversights can cost people their lives.
According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer has become the most common cancer globally, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide, with an estimated 280,000 new cases in the US by the end of 2021. Of the new cases, about 85% of them occur in individuals who have no family history. Too often Western medicine relies solely on genetic testing as a mode of preventive and preemptive care, which overlooks the significance of performing regular self-checks. There may be parts of us that feel foreign, that we may even want to one day be rid of — my breasts, for example. I know as well as anyone how painful dysphoria can be, but keeping an eye on my body quite literally saved my life.
2 sonograms, 2 mammograms, 1 biopsy, and 2 months later, I got the call: it was breast cancer. The part of me that I identified with the least was now all everyone could talk about. Years of separating my body from my identity left me unprepared to accept this reality. In sharing with those closest to me, I often found those words — breast cancer — lodged in my throat.
Through it all, I couldn’t stop touching the small mass. And as I felt it, considered it, forced myself to accept it, the pebble became more than the force that brought my world to a screeching halt. I transformed it into an opportunity to open up a space for offering myself the kind of compassion I generally reserved for others. I transformed it into a symbol of care — a vehicle for baby-stepping myself through grief to gratitude for the years of poking and prodding and adjusting my body; for the knowing touch that located a protrusion smaller than a flake of Maldon sea salt, a potentially lethal mutation stealthy enough to evade the attention of an expert.
With a mastectomy not on the table for me right now, I often look in the mirror and nevertheless feel appreciative, rather than exasperated: No, my breasts may not fit into the aesthetic I desire, but now they offer other avenues of loving myself. They are an embodied reminder that to care for oneself means paying close attention.
Less than a year into my diagnosis, my self-compassion continues to flourish. I now say the word “breasts” in relation to my body more fluidly. I even wear a brass talisman of a set of breasts around my neck everyday. It brings me joy. When people see it, they light the fuck up. That kind of positive energy brings healing. My body is in a state of transition and I feel prepared to meet it at every stage, trusting that it will guide me every step of the way.
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