In August of 2023, we released our fourth Open Call: How might we reimagine healing and transformation with cancer through poetry, art, letters, and stories? The following is a poetry submission we received from this open call.
“My mother passed from breast cancer when I was three years old. Experiencing a motherless foundation effected all areas of my life and still does. I have survived cancer twice but being diagnosed with breast cancer in both breasts (genetic 5% category) just before I turned 60 was the most difficult. Although I led a healthy, organic lifestyle, breast cancer caught up with me and it was a complicated 6 1/2 year journey. I used the time to write a draft of my memoir, Caution: Mermaid Crossing, Voyages of a Motherless Daughter. The essay “Reconstruction” I’m submitting is from my book. There are millions of women around the world struck with cancer. I believe my raw honesty is relatable to women going through high seas of difficulty. I was mostly on my own when I went through my ordeal. It’s a lonely path no matter what. I believe my words will help those challenged by cancer or other difficulties will inspire them to move forward with bravery and discover moments of beauty as I have in the midst of it all.”
Valerie Anne Burns
Reconstruction
I’d come from the island of Key Biscayne where I gained my mermaid fin and love of the green tropical sea where all hurt flowed with the waves. I was only three when my mother (in her thirty’s) died of breast cancer and all I wanted decades later after being diagnosed myself was to have her by my side. I never knew my mother or had the chance to frolic in the waves with her. The loss of my mother is a wound set-in cells, bone, and spirit that has resided there with no intention of fleeing.
* * *
Coming across more zombie-like than mermaid-like, I was on the other side of seven surgeries that began with a radical double mastectomy and went on from there when a reoccurring staph infection consumed what was my left breast. I cannot say that I was easily swimming through those last five years. Finally, reconstruction on my left breast was approaching. Not long after the staph infection reoccurred, my surgeon did fat grafting to my left breast to avoid putting in another expansion. Fat was taken from my thighs—inner, outer, and back of thighs. It was so excruciatingly painful that I’d say to girlfriends over and over, “How any woman would voluntarily opt for liposuction is plain nuts.”
If the long scars under my arm and under what used to be my nice firm breasts weren’t enough, I was one big bruise from my hips down to my feet and had to lay on my back with my legs in the air and shimmy with my arms toward the end of the bed, so I could get up without my thighs touching. Thankfully, all that yoga paid off where being limber comes in handy. Damn staph infections screwed up the normal plan where two major surgeries would’ve been it. It’s as if I was two separate women where everything went as planned on the right but not the left. Endlessness.
My breasts were not something I wholly appreciated until I lost them. Does every woman appreciate their breasts from cup A to triple D? Now, I just yearn to have my 34 Double D breasts back. Maybe this is true for most women who go through breast cancer. I didn’t show cleavage much until I entered my forties. When I was young, I leaned toward a classic, covered-up look–Think updated Annie Hall. Although I lived in LA, I wasn’t running around in the Hollywood super-sexy look, and that’s because I saw too much fake cleavage and face fillers. I purposely leaned toward natural beauty in the city of stars. Occasionally, I’d sex it up a bit but should’ve done it more consistently. An actress friend once told me, “Women who really show off their breasts have breasts that are usually store bought and need to get their money’s worth.” I may not have been showing them off much but took full advantage of the erotic sensation they provided.
There were several female acquaintances who mentioned (with enthusiasm) how I would gain ‘new’ breasts as if implying that it was a ‘new’ beginning. It couldn’t be further from the truth. This was just the beginning of an interesting string of ignorant and judgmental comments I would have to endure. Reconstruction is far from a boob job. A woman who chooses to have augmentation surgery is left with breast tissue and nerves where the sensuous stimulation remains. Reconstruction is chopping off body parts where you are left with nothing but skin, scars, and nipple sparing if you’re lucky. Any sexual libido sensation you’d been blessed with in the nipples will no longer exist—Cold and numb. It happened to be an extremely sensitive part of my sexual libido, which I will never experience again.
This is what held me back from making the decision to launch into a double mastectomy right away. Once diagnosed, I wanted a second opinion on which way to go knowing what I’d have to do. All I could think about was future sex and losing the most essential part of eroticism toward orgasm. A reputable and famous radiologist, who I was connected to by a friend viewed all my pathology and pictures as a favor. I asked him to please give me the bottom line since more medical info hurt my head. He said, “I’m afraid your breasts have turned against you. If you were my wife, and I love my wife, I’d tell her to have a double mastectomy.” I was in an unusual 5% category as a woman with a tumor in both breasts.
I didn’t feel they had turned against me, because I didn’t have any symptoms indicating I had the Big C but instinctually knew what his professional recommendation was going to be. I guess I would’ve had to be past stage 1 to feel sick with cancer. I agonized over the reality of losing this gratifying part of my body. For some women, it’s not a big concern, but for me it was all I could think about. I was reminded by friends and doctors that saving my life was more important.
My life, and possession of my body began to feel like it was slowly slipping away. A powerful feminine essence I achieved through decades of spiritual practice, therapy, and relationship experiences began to drain through my toes and tips of my fingers—a power I’d come to inhabit flowed down a long drain to the Santa Barbara ocean. An ending.
An interesting antidote is that when my ninth and final surgery of new implants for revised and safer reconstruction occurred, it was January 2020. By the time I started coming out of an extended recovery to see light ahead and understand something clearly at last, everyone disappeared into a Pandemic isolation. I’d been mostly isolated for more than six years and faced with discovering clever ways to cope and move forward. I kept writing and devised a way to travel by creating a workshop for breast cancer survivors at retreats. As a veteran of enormous loss beginning as a toddler, I was driven to find purpose. Sharing my workshop, “Living and Healing Through Color” where I utilize my fashion and writing background fulfilled the need for purpose. There’s beauty in color everywhere and nature provides the best place for a palette. In the most heartbreaking times, seeking moments of beauty is a savior.
I’m not sure what I inherited from my beautiful mother other than genetics that presented cancer twice. There was a barbaric approach to breast cancer when my glamorous and tender-hearted mother was diagnosed. The thought of this as I went through the medical paces adds a veil of sadness so palpable, I take pause in my little girl loneliness, a deep loneliness that’s never said goodbye as I’ve continued to search for maternal mothering.
It was impossible to know what road would be paved ahead. I showed my breasts over and over to most of the medical practices in Santa Barbara. I was no longer me, but a thing–a thing exposed to needles, endless hands-on exams, tests with prodding and probing, scalpels, and then the numerous surgeries and complications. How can anyone be prepared? Since I had an auto immune condition, I wasn’t a candidate for radiation anyway. A radical bilateral mastectomy became the only choice for me.
I looked ahead, trusting my rock star surgeon to accomplish his artistic work where I’d finally gain breast-like symmetry. To build a breast from fat grafting alone would’ve taken multiple times and I didn’t have enough fat on me to be successful. I also couldn’t bear the time, bruising, and pain it would take. Fifty percent of fat disappears so it takes re-doing and re-doing. The hell with it. I was beginning to fall down the rabbit hole of discouragement. What I was left with post fat-grafting was unattractive–even freakish, a little bulge with a sink hole in the middle, my nipple hanging down.
I have never pretended to not be a vain woman and I’m a Libra–truly appreciative of beauty and balance. As the sensitive and insecure woman that I am, I was thousands of miles from a sense of balance both physically and emotionally. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror so what man would want to see this part of me? I wasn’t reconstructed on the left and walked around with a prosthetic stuffed in the left pocket of a bra made special for that circumstance. It’s not something I could walk through the rest of my life with in any comfortable or confident manner—every time I put that chicken-fillet looking thing in my bra, a bitterness ran through me that added another layer to more loss than I am even able to articulate.
Years of this paved road constructed without my permission, depression visited and enveloped me. I felt something else though. A traumatized warrior, I would be reconstructed but wondered, who or what will reconstruct me when I feel broken in spirit and heart? How would I recover from the trauma? Although it’s PTSD in an unusual way than what we sadly know occurs for many Vets (including my dad in a time where there was little awareness or recognition of this malady) coming home from war, it’s still trauma for us medical battle-weary beings. I had been a medical soldier in automatic survival mode. There are more times than I’d like to acknowledge when I still walk in a half daze.
My diagnosis was the July of 2013, which began the sensation of being a stranger in my own body feeling in perpetual fight or flight. Still, very deep within there was a small flame burning for a formidable mermaid warrior. It took a year past my ninth surgery in January of 2020 to crawl out of depletion. Humility and fear were present daily, and it continues to visit when I’m triggered at times. My Oncologist told me that every patient holds fear of cancer coming back. The worst past me, I’m pushed if not forced into a new me with scars traveling from front to back. The physical scars remain but fade over time. That little girl losing her mother to the same disease still resides within me as a sixty plus woman. I hope my mother can see me wherever she may be and feel proud of her strong, willful, mermaid warrior daughter. I trust that the world will open again and a luminated road will soon be revealed that I can steadily walk upon to embrace lofty dreams and purposeful adventures.
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