Katie Brockie
Looking at myself in the mirror who is it,
Who is that lopsided stranger
Washing up and down the shore
Patricia Goedicke, from ‘Now Only One of Us Remains’
In 2023, I had a mastectomy. When I left the hospital, I was given a Dacron-stuffed soft fabric oval pad to use as a temporary prothesis for when I was able to wear bras again. It reminded me of the rolled-up pairs of socks that some girls used to stuff in their bras at high school – and of the other girls talking disparagingly about ‘falsies’. It was a few days until I was brave enough to look at myself in the mirror. When I did, it was an extraordinary feeling. A strip of surgical tape lay across the left side of my chest, which was now … empty. When I looked down, I could see my stomach sticking out. As many women also experience, it was hard enough to love my own body before I had surgery, but now I was wondering if I could love my asymmetrical body. Is it okay to love a scarred, one-breasted body, or should I book myself onto the waiting list for reconstructive surgery, ASAP?
[Read more…] about Being Asymmetrical
When you have treatment for cancer, information sometimes comes to you in a sideways fashion and not from the direction you expect. It didn’t seem weird, then, that it was from a newspaper article that I first learnt about the benefits of physical exercise during and after cancer treatment. The article detailed the closure of Expinkt, a gym and exercise programme that had been established by Associate Professor Lynnette Jones, a researcher in the field of Exercise Oncology. Expinkt was run by the University of Otago School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences from 2009 until November 2021 (when funding dried up). During that time, the article said, the programme had treated hundreds of people with cancer, mostly breast cancer survivors. Now it was going to re-establish itself as The Wellness Gym, a not-for-profit in new facilities outside the university.
Many people think of the hospice as a place where people with cancer go to die. Back in 2014, when I frequently walked past the Otago Community Hospice building in Dunedin’s North East Valley on my way home, that was my impression. What a sad place that must be to work, I thought. Although I practically lived on its doorstep, I had only ventured into this daunting place once. My partner had asked me to drop off a gift to a friend who was a hospice inpatient. I agreed, but only to leave it at reception. I didn’t want to go any further, in case I encountered dying people.
Our current global situation with Covid-19 and our nationwide lockdown has reminded me of the many forms that isolation can take. Bullies, health conditions, geographic locations – among other factors – can cause barriers to pop up between us, socially, physically, and mentally. I remember, for example, when fifteen years ago a friend was diagnosed with celiac disease and had to change to a gluten-free diet. Gluten-free food was scarce then, compared to its ready availability in supermarkets today. I imagine that her diagnosis would’ve been isolating, not only in terms of the food she could eat, but also in terms of what her family and friends could understand about her new reality.
As a child, you always see your parents as these invincible super-humans. After all, they did put up with my psychologically traumatic teenage hormones at their peak. Parents want to protect you, they put on a brave face, they try to shelter you from what is dark in life. But sometimes they can’t, and sometimes, it’s important for them not to. When someone you see as so incredibly strong is forcibly made weak by disease, it’s an adjustment, to say the least. Before he got cancer, I had only seen my father fighting for me, and in that battle he was undefeated.