A Shell of a Girl

I look in the mirror and I can no longer see the simple girl that use to live within me.

It was October 29, 1996, when Dr. No Good spoke the words that changed my life forever. “You have breast cancer…..” Everything he said after those few words didn’t really matter. That day was the beginning of the end of the carefree girl I knew.
At first I thought if I ignore it, maybe, it would go away on its own. However, that damn Dr. No Good was persistent. Somehow that fool talked me into chemotherapy and surgery. He said something like, “In order to ensure that you have a better quality of life you should really consider…” And I actually thought he was concerned about me, and the fact that I was so young. I thought I would hate him forever because he was the reason I got a double mastectomy and took chemotherapy at the tender age of twenty-five. How could a highly educated doctor not know that he had sentenced me to a slow death? My body would remain living with the side effects of all the poison that was put in my veins. My spirit…my spirit died the minute I woke up to find I no longer had breasts. It was at that moment when my anesthesia wore off I realized what Dr. No Good did to me. He robbed me of my womanhood. While he was removing my breasts, he must have taken my hope too. Since there was no going back I went ahead and started my chemo treatments. Every time I had to throw up I cursed that stupid doctor. Every time I couldn’t get out of bed I cursed him. Every time I saw a new bald spot in my head I wanted to spit in his face. I never knew I could have so much hate for one single person. I never knew I was capable of having such vicious thoughts.
One day I woke up to find a half of a person. I stopped considering myself a woman. Women have breast, hair, and men. Since, I didn’t have any of those things; I figured I couldn’t possibly be a woman. I was empty and bitter because I felt this shouldn’t have happened to me. I was a decent person, most of the time. Wasn’t I? I had no self worth, absolutely no dignity. I had begun to date men that abuse or were just plain disrespectful to me. I felt I had to take whatever a man dished out because I didn’t want to be lonely. I distanced myself from the people that truly loved me. I hated myself so much I couldn’t see past my own hate. How could anyone love me when I wasn’t a whole woman? A whole woman…see I thought that breast, hair, and even men defined my womanhood.
Now when I look back on my actions and feelings I understand them. I mean it took a whole lot of therapy and peer group counseling but I eventually got it. Before cancer, I lived in my own superficial world. I could never see the big picture. I never really knew the depth of my soul and the strength of my faith until cancer knocked down my door. Every day I wake up, I thank GOD that cancer was present in my life. People think I am crazy when I say that but it’s the truth. I’m not thanking GOD for the cancer! I’m thanking HIM because October 29, 1996, was the death of the little girl I use to be and the birth of the woman that I became. Those first few years I was lost but with the help of GOD I was found. How cliché? But it’s the truth. Now I’m thirty-five years old and I still don’t have much hair because I keep it cut extremely short. Ironic…maybe. I do have breasts; those were a small gift to myself. I’ve been married for three years to a wonderful, respectful, spiritual, and sexy man. Before cancer I was a shallow person, I couldn’t appreciate the simple things in my life. After cancer I became a woman of substance.

I look in the mirror and I see the woman that lives within me and I smile.

Kris aka Evolving butterfly

(June 18, 2010 I was diagnosed with breast cancer a month before my 31st birthday)
(I wrote this a month after my mother’s death in 2006.Could it be irony? Does this mean I get the husband next? Can someone put in a good word for me?)