It's been 2 months and 1 week since I was forced into emergency surgery. All I have left is one ovary and it's respective fallopian tube along with an 8 inch scar. I managed to go through this during the middle of my spring quarter in graduate school. I somehow finished on time and with straight A's, which still shocks me. But, that is a topic for another day. When you are diagnosed with cancer, your life kind of goes on pause. After I left the hospital, I remembered that outside of those thick brick walls, I am a student and my courses would not wait up for me. My assignments were piling up and I felt overwhelmed. I was able to create individual learning plans with each of my professors the weekend before my surgery. These helped a bit, but some plans needed to be adjusted. One professor allowed for one particular assignment, a reflection on class material, to not be rooted in the readings but in the overall theme of the course. This course was titled Human Sexuality Across the Life Span. My professor gave me different experiential activities to choose from and reflect on. I decided to engage in the body awareness and appreciation experiential activity. This activity required me to view my body naked and recite a positive affirmation to myself. This may sound creepy to the average business major, but this assignment makes sense for social workers in training. I was to reflect on the experience as I participated in it for a week straight. However, I started the activity the weekend before my surgery and completed it after I came home from the hospital. The drastic change in my body allowed for an interesting twist on this assignment that I felt would be interesting to share as I continue to navigate through my own cancer journey. I hope you enjoy this raw (and slightly edited (because writing while on strong narcotics is not going to turn out perfect)) assignment that I turned in for my class:
I have always had what I felt to be a healthy relationship with my body. However, I was critical of it as most individuals are. While I enjoy my height, my long legs, my eyes, my hair, and my backside, there are other parts of my body that bother me. I have always felt that my torso was too long. With that, I was also disappointed in the lack of tone in my abdomen. While I was extremely fit in my teenage years due to my career as a competitive dancer, I never had the typical “6 pack” like my fellow teammates. I never liked that my body was straight because I felt that if I did not have hips, I was not feminine. I have also hated my chest my entire life. I am not sure I will ever be satisfied with that aspect of my body. Until recently, I felt that I needed to make changes to my body to have it reach the standards that society has set for womxn.
I am currently going through a traumatic experience that led me to need emergency surgery. This procedure left me with a 8-inch scar from my underwear line that curves around my belly button and finally landing about an inch and a half above it. When I found out that I needed surgery, my first instinct was to wonder if I was going to wake up from the procedure. It hadn’t hit me that once I survive this experience, I would be left with a physical reminder for the majority of the portion of my life where we have been told that looks matter. Growing up, I was told to enjoy the way I looked because I was not going to look like that forever. I did not know that last week was the last time I was going to get to experience my thin, untouched body. Being in my very early 20s, age 22 to be exact, it is hard to have a large scar. In the future, will my sex life be affected by that scar? It can be easy to say that any guy who turns me away because of my scar isn’t worth worrying about. But, because of the messages I received growing up, I was made to feel that whatever my body looks like after all my life experiences, whether it be sun exposure that causes wear and tear on my skin, childbirth that will cause my hips to move, or all of the clothes I won’t be able to wear anymore because of my body’s changing shape, was going to be nothing but bad. Womxn are told that they get uglier with age and less valuable as they experience more of what life has to offer.
There is something about a woman’s purity that turns society on. Womxn who are untouched are idolized. Men have the luxury of not being held to those bizarre standards. Men who have more sex are able to establish more dominance and achieve a higher level of masculinity that is equated with power. However, womxn who embrace their sexuality and explore with great comfort are put down and viewed as used or dirty. Womxn who view their body in a negative way, who hide their body from everyone, and remain submissive in their approach in public and in the bedroom are worshiped. We keep womxn in this child-like box and must protect them from the wicked ways of men and the world. If womxn are viewed as children, they are also viewed as helpless. We are not strong, we cannot stand up for ourselves, and we are unable to withstand the obstacles of life without help. As a young woman receiving a cancer diagnosis in a city all alone and having to go through with an emergency surgery that would leave my body scarred, I was scared for what was to come. But, I felt that it was important to confront those internalized messages and participate in this experiential activity.
I began the experiential activity before my surgery. I looked at my body fully clothed and all I could think about was the amount of pain I was in due to my tumor. While my bloated stomach was hidden under my oversized hoodie, I felt the foreign object invading my bodily organs. I just wanted the large mass out of my abdomen. I looked at my body naked and visibly saw my bulging tummy. I thought about how I would look with a scar. While societal messages tell me that I am not strong and that I would not be desirable after my surgery, I wanted to rewrite a new narrative for myself. I saw that this body had been carrying around the tumor for months and enduring so much pain to where weeks earlier I could not stand without crying. 21 cm of a mix of solid material and fluid had weighed me down, but my spirit did not. I began to see myself as strong. I thought about how I would wake up from surgery as many womxn do after they lose an ovary to invasive and cancerous cysts. While I would be in pain, I would survive. I realized how resilient that body had been. It endured physical and sexual abuse from past partners, chronic stress from the mental abuse from my childhood, and the toll that lifelong depression had on it. I was amazed that after everything I had put my body through that it was still standing there while promising me that it would be there when I woke up Monday morning. That was something to be proud of. I began to anticipate the arrival of my scar. I no longer viewed it as something to drive my sex appeal back down and lessen my chances of finding a partner, but a good conversation starter that would demonstrate my independence, strength, and passion for life. I was looking forward to a surgery that would make me feel pleasure physically and spiritually.
After I came home from surgery, I continued on with the experiential activity. However, I refused to look at my scar for the first few days. I viewed myself in the mirror fully clothed and it brought me comfort to remember how I looked exactly the same as I did before. It made me feel as if nothing about me really changed. On the surface, I look untouched and could go on with life as normal. Over the next few days, I began to remember that I would be carrying that scar around for years to come. I was (and still am to be completely honest) scared of the blood, puss, bruising, asymmetry, and placement of the scar. But I thought about how a few days ago before surgery, I was feeling proud of my naked body and that it was going to evolve. I reminded myself that the scar just illustrates the depth of my personalized human experience. Trauma morphs me into the person that I am meant to be. I should be proud of the scar and build a positive relationship with it now that it was here. So, I began by looking at the scar. I felt ugly at first, but I think it was because it was new and different. The more I looked at it, the more I became intrigued with it. How it moved, how the skin was raised in specific areas. I thought about how the surgeons carefully stitched me up inch by inch - 8 inches long in total. The care that was put into healing my wound made me feel supported and loved. I would run my finger across the scar. While I did not choose to have surgery and it was forced upon me, I was proud of my body in its efforts to heal me from cancer and surgery. This body has survived rape and now cancer. That is no small feat. I realized I don’t want to remain pure for the rest of my life. Being untouched, shy, and boxed in by society is vulnerable and limiting. It can be difficult to practice pleasure and feel satisfaction without the freedom to experience life to the fullest.
So, in conclusion, I will wear the two-piece bathing suit that I have been looking at in my swimsuit drawer. I will take a nap when my mind is calling for one during a hectic day with school and field work on the brain. I will eat the cookies my roommate made for me. I will get the tattoo(s) that I have been wanting for years. I will dance at the night club in the way that makes my body feel free and my soul feel confident. I will engage in pleasurable activity because it is what I deserve. We are living in a man’s world where womxn are pressured to disengage from their pleasure instincts. But I want to break away from that. I never thought a cancer diagnosis and an emergency surgery would finally allow me to be proud of my body and convince me to do the things I always felt shame for, like eating a tub of brownies or being a sexual and confident being. However, it is the life experiences that are thrusted upon us that force us to rethink everything we are told. In short, thank you cancer for showing me that my pleasure matters and my experiences matter.
