A ten point update
Ten thoughts I had when my breast implant flipped over
One: Oh hey — hmmm, something seems … different? Maybe it’s just me. Let me check. Gosh this looks really strange. I mean — do you think … ? No! That’s impossible! Let me check in the mirror. Maybe it’s just me.
Two: No, this isn’t just me. Something is definitely amiss. It doesn’t hurt, but … Let me text my plastic surgeon: “Hey there. Hope your morning is going well! Just wondering … can an implant flip?” Oh, they can? “Yes, I’ve tried pushing it back into place.” Have I really flipped my tit? “I’ll call the office. I’ll see you later today. Thank you.” Oh my god, I’ve flipped a tit. I’ve fucking flipped a tit.
Three: This is too much. I am going to kill myself.
Four: Nono, I am not going to kill myself. I’ve lived through too much to let a broken boob take me down. No way, no how.
Five: After trying to brutalize the implant into submission, the doctor concedes: It’s a flipped implant. Third she’s seen. Won’t use these implants anymore. But I’ll have to change them out for something else. Nope, not another surgery. They do it in the office, under local. Under local! Great, when can we do it? In two weeks? In two weeks. In the office! Under local! Cut me up, swap them out — like getting a new set of tires!
Six: Cancer took my breasts. My breasts are gone. I am nothing inside my chest except for these two bulbs of silicone. I am nothing but a desperate heart, rattling against the bars of my ribs, trying to endure — trying to survive — one more tragedy, one more comedy, the two blurring into wisdom. Cancer took my breasts, I am nothing inside my chest except for these dumb implants. And one of them has flipped over.
Seven: I feel ugly, but I make a lot of jokes about the flipped implant, and that helps me laugh even though the only thing I want to do is cry.
Eight: Okay, so I am in the office, and the Ativan hasn’t kicked in. I try to keep up the conversation as the doctor injects me with medication to make me numb. Blah blah blah, oh my god this hurts, blah blah blah, not dating anyone, don’t talk to my ex, oh my fucking god, blah blah blah, oh my fucking god it’s over, now the other one, just trying to focus on myself these days you know just trying to focus on myself, jesus fucking christ this is worst than the first, blah blah blah.
Then it all goes numb and she gets to work.
I don’t want to think about what it might look like: the incision, the emerging bulge of the upside down implant, my hollow chest, just empty flaps of skin. I don’t want to think about it: to be alive and opened wide, my flesh yawning open between the teeth of the forceps to make way for the new implant — it slides into place with a wet sucking sound. The Ativan is working. I don’t care.
The procedure goes well, but they offer me a juicebox on the way out.
Nine: I feel a little better. I still make jokes. Recovery is going well. It’s itchy — which is good! — that means it’s healing.
Ten: My breasts are gone. They are gone forever.
Never Tell Me the Odds is a series of short nonfiction based on and surrounding my battle with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer at the age of thirty-one while keeping my hair on my head.
