My Boob Funeral
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By Jenny Atchley
Several weeks before having a double mastectomy, I hosted a funeral for my boobs. The proceedings could have passed as an actual funeral, except for one thing: there was way too much laughing. And boy, did I need to laugh at what I was about to do: chop off my breasts in a daring, preemptive move to rid myself of them, before they rid themselves of me.
It all started last year, when doctors discovered a golf-ball sized cancerous tumor in my colon. I was 27. Since I didn’t fit the typical demographic of most colon cancer patients, doctors recommended genetic testing to see if my various relatives who’d succumbed to cancer had anything to do with my diagnosis. Turns out, they did.
I tested positive for a genetic mutation called BRCA1, which causes tumor suppressor cells to malfunction, creating significant cancer risks. People with BRCA1 have up to an 80 percent chance of developing breast cancer and up to a 50 percent chance of developing ovarian cancer. (To compare, the general population has a 13 percent chance of getting breast cancer and a 2 percent chance of getting ovarian cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.)
Women in my situation face a disconcerting choice: screen regularly for the rest of their lives, wondering every time if cancer will be detected, or preempt cancer’s appearance by undergoing prophylactic surgery. Although the second option doesn’t come with a 100 percent guarantee that cancer won’t show up (since it’s impossible to remove literally every cell of breast or ovarian tissue), removing these organs while they’re healthy still greatly reduces the risk that cancer will infiltrate the remaining cells.
At first, I thought cutting away perfectly healthy body parts to avoid another cancer diagnosis was crazy. Then my own screening routine began. My ovarian cancer screenings began innocuously enough. But after my very first breast MRI detected an abnormality spread throughout my right breast, I landed back in the operating room for an MRI-guided biopsy. Waiting for the results, I was an emotional wreck. Was it possible that I’d have two different cancers before I turned 30?! Many women dread turning 30 because they believe it shines a glaring spotlight on what they have or haven’t achieved to that point, but my focus was elsewhere. If they didn’t find breast cancer this time, would they the next time? Or the time after that? Would I even make it to 30?
The abnormality was benign, but the experience still left me rattled. My surgeon informed me that scar tissue from the biopsy would forever after appear as a dark spot on future scans, which would raise the perpetual question: is it just scar tissue, or is it cancer? He assured me that I’d have to undergo biopsies regularly from that point forward, just to make sure it really was only scar tissue. That knowledge amplified the overwhelming question in my mind: to chop, or not to chop?
Not long after, I was walking along a street when suddenly a photo of my grandmother, dead from breast cancer long before I was born, popped into my head. She’d died young, partly because she found a breast lump and did nothing about it until the tumor had grown too big and it was way too late to save her. I hardly believe in ghosts, but as I walked I was struck by a sudden, overwhelming presence of her. The odds favored my eventually getting breast cancer, and I interpreted this strange spiritual sensation as my grandmother urging me not to sit back and repeat her mistake. It wasn’t until I decided to have a double mastectomy that the sense of her left me as promptly as it had arrived. I haven’t been able to deliberately conjure a clear mental picture of her since.
I scheduled the surgery at The Center for Restorative Breast Surgery in New Orleans, where surgeons would perform the mastectomy and a specialized procedure to reconstruct my breasts by implanting fat tissue taken from my hips. The procedure would ensure that my new set of ladies looked and felt as natural as possible. But despite my resolve to flash the threat of breast cancer a defiant middle finger, I was still on edge. I cried often, lamenting my crummy luck and the looming reality of losing my breasts.
That’s when my husband finally insisted that I find some way to laugh in the midst of so much turmoil. He suggested a boob funeral, a gathering of women to honor the innocence I’d lost and find joy in what I still had to lose.
The backdrop was an outdoor boob graveyard, where tombstones (make that “moundstones”) shaped like pairs of upside-down breasts honored the likes of Holly’s Hooters, Tina’s Ta-Ta’s, and Betty’s Boobies (followed by the epitaph “B.I.P., Bounce in Peace”). My moundstone read: Jenny’s Jugs, 28 and Still Perky.”
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