[2021-05-28] Womanhood
In honour of the International Day of Action for Women's Health, my daughter suggested that I examine how I felt facing ovarian cancer in the context of society's views of what it means to be a woman. So today's post explores three aspects of my cancer diagnosis and treatment and their impact on my perceptions of self. This may be helpful for others who face similar challenges in the future.
Despite how open I am in this blog, I'm typically more reserved about my health issues. But when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last summer, I felt an obligation to people beyond my immediate family—particularly my staff—to share what was going on and why I so suddenly dropped out of their lives. I suppose that I could have simply told everyone that I had cancer and not specified the type, but it seemed to make more sense to be forthright. As time passed and I learned how uncommon ovarian cancer is (only 1-2% of Canadians ever develop the illness), I became increasingly convinced that sharing details about my diagnosis and treatment would serve a broader purpose, namely, to increase awareness about a disease that so often sneaks up on its victims.
Before I comment on my response to cancer, its implications and the side effects of treatment, let me acknowledge that where one stands depends on where one sits. In other words, my reaction might have been very different had I been diagnosed at a younger age, before having met my love or having had children.
Reproductive organs
In my case, I was fortunate to have been well beyond childbearing when I was diagnosed—my kids were already 27 and 29. So I faced no difficult decisions about balancing risk reduction through an aggressive hysterectomy with the desire to preserve my ability to have children. Not only were my children long since born, but I had also already gone through menopause. So the removal of my reproductive organs did not make me feel like less of a woman.
As well, the scarring from the surgery has already faded considerably, although that is moot given that I wasn't wearing bikinis before surgery and won't start now.
Hair
After surgery came chemotherapy. Some types of chemotherapy don't result in hair loss, but my oncologist put that question to rest very quickly. "You're going to lose your hair," he stated categorically. And I did. Not quite three weeks after my first chemo treatment, my hair started to thin. First came a sore spot on the top of my scalp, then—a day later—tingling across the entire top of my head. Next, I noticed strands of hair in my hand whenever I ran my fingers through my hair. Soon after, large clumps of hair came off in the shower, clinging to my wet shoulders and generally making a mess. It was more inconvenient than traumatic. As I shared in Hair loss,
The idea of losing my hair has not preoccupied me. Like so many things with cancer, this is just one more thing I can't control. So I've tried to accept it. I would be distressed if the hair loss were permanent.
Less than a week later, I asked my husband to give me a Buzz cut. It's so easy to forget the finer details of our lives, which is why I'm so glad that I have documented my cancer journey. Looking back at past posts, I'm able to remind myself of exactly how I felt in the moment. This was my experience in late October:
Today, my husband gave me a buzz cut. I didn't have the courage to do it myself—not because I was afraid of how it would look, but because I was afraid of cutting myself or not being able to do it well.
With tears in his eyes, Chris kissed me, told me how much he loved me, and got to work. His reluctance has always stemmed from fear of how I would react when I saw myself without hair.
When he was finished, he said, "Look at me," then declared—with some surprise—"It looks good."
I went to the powder room and looked in the mirror. "I love it," I exclaimed. "You did such a great job," I told him.
"What's going on?" my son said, as he descended from his bedroom office. "Whoa, looks good, Mom," he said when he saw me.
My daughter emerged from her basement office and agreed. "It looks so much better than your thinning long hair," she confirmed.
My reaction and my family's response made all the difference. Losing my hair was not difficult, though I may have been helped by timing once again. I feel that I was lucky that my hair loss occurred during the colder months of the year when just about everyone was wearing a hat or toque anyway. My hair has returned just in time for the warm weather (though, honestly, I'm back to wearing a beanie today because it's so cold).
Losing my eyebrows and eyelashes came later, as I disclosed in Eyebrows and eyelashes. At about my fourth chemo treatment, I started noticing the gradual loss of volume in my brows and lashes. I believe that it's the absence of hair framing the eyes that gives cancer patients their distinctive look. I felt that having so little hair made me look sicker than I felt. Fortunately, my brows and lashes returned soon after my last chemo treatment.
Despite the fact that I am, on balance, happier with hair than not, I can say truthfully that not having to fuss with hair removal or hair styling while going through chemotherapy was a welcome break.
Breasts
So far, my ovarian cancer has resulted in losses that were easy to accept: reproductive organs that I no longer needed and hair that I knew would grow back.
But my BRCA2 gene change, which increases my risk of developing breast cancer, may necessitate the biggest and most enduring change: the loss of my breasts. That decision is in the future, so I can't say, today, how I will feel if I opt for a preventive double mastectomy in the months ahead.
I can say that I am grateful to be in my 50s, with a husband who loves me unconditionally, and grown children. I've said on a few occasions that my children need a mom more than I need breasts.
Being open about the possibility that I will have a double mastectomy, with or without reconstruction, takes away the potential embarrassment or feeling that I would be less of a woman without breasts or without natural breasts.
Returning to the question of what it means to be a woman, I would say that my empathy, compassion, caring, generosity, dependability, friendliness, warmth and creativity are as integral to being a woman as having reproductive organs, hair and breasts. Womanhood is so much more than the package.
