Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy (22 page)

This famous photographer has worked her magic. She has captured the courage that was mingled with my fear and turned out a beauty so honest and raw it is unfamiliar. She has convinced me that maybe I have never really seen myself. The new me.

In the photo my scar is a powerful bolt of a line, but only one piece of a mosaic. How could it be only that and not the whole focus of the photo? I remember the picture she took of the little girl smoking in her wading pool. I know now why she is famous.

I never existed as a beautiful woman until I saw myself that July day in her chic Noho studio. In every photo in the past I hated my nose, my cheeks, my smile. Now, when there is a huge defect, I was the most beautiful.

I had set out to inspire other women that they could be beautiful after this surgery and I ended up convincing myself.

The wonder of that moment dissipates pretty quickly the moment the magazine actually hits the newsstands. I stay in bed for a day and worry about every ex-boyfriend, every teacher, and every boss who might see my nudie picture. I worry that they will see my defect, but I worry more about all the women I was supposed to inspire.

She answers my question just when I thought I had done the wrong thing. Her e-mail tells me that she is just twenty-eight, and when her breast surgeon told her that she had cancer and she needed a mastectomy she fled his office. She happened to stop at a newsstand on her way home. She happened to buy that issue of
Self
magazine. When she got home she saw my picture. She knew she could do it after she saw me. I hadn’t scared her.

I got a call from another young woman. She said my picture was displayed on her coffee table. The only other time I had heard of displaying breasts on coffee tables was when my uncle kept his Marilyn Monroe book on display in his beach house. But my breasts? She told me she had breast cancer, and she had brought my picture to her doctor appointments and showed all of her friends. She wanted to look just like me.

Even though I wanted to inspire those young women, in the end it turned out not to be about inspiring anyone else. I finally accepted myself.

It has taken more than my surgery to build the perfect boob. And I realize it actually isn’t about my boob or my scar, my hair, my nipple, or any of that. The camera has captured a me I never knew I could become. Somehow I have developed in front of my own eyes.

I remember my journey . . . where it began in the strip bar. I was so scared I would never be the same again without my boob. And I am not. I remember how I sat in the strip bar feeling the power draining out of me. I remember the stripper. I remember her swagger, and how it really wasn’t about her boobs. It was about her attitude and how even though she was giving so much away, she still was holding on to herself so fiercely that it was hot. It was powerful.

I have posed topless for millions to see me with just one boob. I have given away so much, but I feel more powerful than I ever did before, even with my two boobs. How can I be most beautiful when I had lost the most?

How do I explain this irony?

I have finally learned how to strip.

Afterword: The Sky’s the Limit: All the Places I Have Worn Lipstick

It is amazing, all the places where I have worn my lipstick. Places I never dreamed I would be on the morning of my mastectomy. I wore lipstick to the White House to meet the President while on assignment for Lifetime Television, to Skye’s first day of preschool and to her kindergarten interviews. I wore lipstick to my brother Howard’s wedding, and when I first held his daughter, Stella, in my arms. I wore lipstick to my mother’s sixtieth birthday, and my father’s sixty-fifth. I was wearing lipstick when I heard Paul made partner. I got lipstick all over Tyler when I kissed him on our ten-year wedding anniversary in St. Thomas, under the stars.

And there are so many places I still want to wear lipstick to: Skye’s college graduation, her wedding. I want to live to watch Skye wear lipstick. Actually, I want to be one of those hunched over old, old ladies who wears bright red lipstick.

Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had not done that breast exam and saved my life. All the moments and all the lipstick shades I would have missed.

I still think of all the women I have met who will never get to wear lipstick. Their beautiful faces and their dreams keep me up at night.

It was hard to imagine that I could ever wear lipstick again: I was scared that the other lipstick moments would not live up to my defining lipstick moment. Just wearing lipstick to drink a cup of coffee, go to work, go out to the movies. But maybe that is what is so special about them now—they are so ordinary. I have gotten my life back, and each moment I’m living feels especially lipstick-worthy.

But there is a strange lipsticky residue from that day that I have never been able to wipe from my lips. Each time I put it on is a moment of reflection, of appreciation that I am not in the hospital or sick from cancer treatments. I am so free without my IV line.

Each time I wear lipstick, I am emboldened by the memory of that day: the IV line in my arm, my surgical gown on with my butt hanging out, and my perfectly applied lipstick.

I swear I can still taste that hope.

Geralyn’s Favorite Breast Cancer Resources

1. Anastacia Fund

bcrfcure.org

Listen to the beauty and the power of the singer/songwriter Anastacia’s voice if you need to feel inspired. Anastacia is raising awareness through funds that specifically target younger women who get breast cancer and have no family history of the disease. The Anastacia Fund is run through The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, founded in 1993 by Evelyn H. Lauder of The Estée Lauder Companies.

Donations
:

The Anastacia Fund—BCRF

Suite 1209

654 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10021

2. Big Bam!

Bigbam.com

Janice Bonadio was only twenty-seven, the same age that I was, when she found a lump in her breast. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had no health insurance. She realized that she could make a huge difference by serving women like herself, and started The Big Bam!, an organization committed to reaching under-served women. They provide free self-exam cards, and host free mammogram screenings. Janice is now changing the world: “It scares me to know that most women in their twenties feel they are too young to have to do a breast self-exam or simply don’t know how to do it; and that there are so many uninsured women who cannot afford a mammogram. I had to do something to change this.”

Donations
:

The Big Bam!

51 MacDougal Street

Suite 487

New York, NY 10012

3. Breast cancer.org

breastcancer.org

I had to get nine consults and go on Medline to figure out my treatment options. If only I had had
breastcancer.org
, founded by Dr. Marisa Weiss, a compassionate and brilliant oncologist who wants to empower women by helping them understand their medical choices. Women’s questions about treatment are answered 24/7 with the most reliable, complete, and up-to-date information about breast cancer available, allowing patients to make the best decisions about their treatment. Dr. Weis also wrote
Living Beyond Breast Cancer: A Survivor’s Guide for When Treatment Ends and The Rest of Your Life Begins
, because there is a different “normal” after cancer happens.

Donations
:

breastcancer.org gifts

111 Forrest Avenue 1R

Narberth, PA 19072

4. B4BC

b4bc.org

Boarding for Breast Cancer (B4BC) was started by a group of women to honor their friend who died from breast cancer when she was only twenty-nine, largely because she was misdiagnosed and told she was “too young” for the disease. These cool snowboarding chicks reach young women with music and sports to let them know that you are never too young to have breast cancer. What a beautiful tribute to a friend!

Donations
:

Boarding for Breast Cancer Foundation

6230 Wilshire Blvd #179

Los Angeles, CA 90048

5. Dr. Sandra Haber

drhaber.com

Dr. Haber is a talented psychologist who specializes in treating cancer patients and their families. What a lifesaver.

6. Lifetime Television (Stop Breast Cancer for Life 10-Year Anniversary)

lifetimetv.com

One reason I work at Lifetime Television is their passion to stop breast cancer. Check out their awareness campaign and the amazing programming they do each October to create awareness and offer hope.

7.
Self
Magazine

selfmagazine.com

Check out the
Self
Breast Cancer Handbook in October.
Self
magazine cares about women all year round, too, and is celebrating it twenty-fifth anniversary of making a difference in womens’ lives. To subscribe, go to selfmagazine.com.

8. Young Survival Coalition

youngsurvival.org

You are not alone! There is a community of young survivors waiting to talk to you about your fertility, your treatment options, and dating. I wish this group had existed when I was diagnosed! The Young Survival Coalition was started in 1998 by three young breast cancer survivors who were all under the age of thirty-five at diagnosis. They felt discouraged by the lack of information and resources available to young women, and are concerned about the under-representation of young women in breast cancer studies.

Donations
:

The Young Survival Coalition

52A Carmine Street

Box 528

New York, NY 10014

9. Zeta Tau Alpha

zetataualpha.org

Even college women are now aware of the risks of breast cancer, largely due to the Zeta Tau Alphas. They have made their national philanthropy cause breast cancer awareness and education. Get involved on college campuses. And “Think Pink!”

Special Thanks

I am profoundly grateful to everyone who believed in this project and supported me in my journey to tell my story.

Jennifer Weis believed passionately in this project from the moment Meredith White told her that I was writing this book. Jennifer, thank you for believing in this book, and thank you for your wisdom in showing me exactly what I needed to include (especially sex with my bandages on)! I feel very close to you after sharing so much!

Elizabeth Beier blew me away when we first met by noticing that I was wearing chandelier earrings like the ones I wore after my mastectomy surgery. Thanks for your support, too.

I feel a little like J Lo talking about my agent, Joelle delBourgo, and bringing her with me to all my meetings, but every woman needs Joelle by her side. You are so tenacious! Thank you for believing in this project and for seeing how it could really reach women. Thank you for being so devoted and dedicated and always wearing lipstick! (Elan, thanks for all of your help!) Caryn Karmatz-Rudy was an early fan of this project, and I am very appreciative of her huge vote of confidence. . . . Caryn’s confidence goes a long way. My lawyers, Conrad Rippy and Kim Schefler Rodriguez, made hard conversations easy with their incredible brains.

There were many amazing writing classmates who read almost every incarnation of every chapter of this book: thank you to Corey, Lillian, Christopher, Eve, Judith, Jo Ann, and recently, Sabrina and Nina. And, to our professor, Janet Flora, thank you for believing in me more than I believed in myself. Thank you for being so incredibly supportive and for all of your fabulous ideas about writing. Thank you for reading every draft of this book and being so enthusiastic about each one. I hear your voice whispering in my ear whenever I write now. Your voice helped me to find mine. (Also, a special thanks to Karol Nelson, my first Gotham teacher, and Judith Crist, my Columbia “Personal Style” professor.) Lorrie Bodger not only did an amazing line edit, she took all the pieces everyone else had helped me to compile and figured out how they fit together, what repeated, and what was missing. Lorrie took all of the ingredients and made a gourmet meal (she writes cookbooks, too!), and she did it under a huge deadline. Lorrie was always true to my vision of the book and kept my voice intact while smoothing out my edges.

I need to thank some amazing women at
Self
magazine for being the first to tell my story and to make me think that I had a story to tell. I need to thank
Self
for being so devoted to women’s lives and so devoted to ending breast cancer, long before it was the chic thing to do. Because it was the right thing to do. Rochelle Udell did my first story in
Self
about my crewcut hair after my chemo. Rochelle also did the story about the circle of friends who supported me, and had the idea to take a picture of me when I was the largest I’ve ever been in my life, days away from giving birth to my daughter, Skye. The caption on the photo was “Survivor Pride.” That was being kind—it was more like “Wide Load,” but I never felt more lucky to be a wide load show other women that they, too, might be lucky enough to have a baby after breast cancer. Rochelle is a visionary in communicating important things to women. Rochelle has been there on many other levels—she came to the hospital to hold Skye when she was born. Rochelle, I treasure our friendship. Lucy Danziger arranged for me to have my topless photo taken for
Self
to show my reconstruction to other young women. The first chapter I ever wrote was about that photo. That experience inspired me to tell my story. When I told Lucy about my experience writing that chapter, she told me that I had to write a book, and that
Self
would support it. Well, of course, Lucy went all out in her Lucy way.
Self
is running the first serial and continues to support me. Donna Fennesey has done an incredible job with the serial, and is always incredible. Dana Points has also been wonderful. Beth Brenner has been a constant friend and supporter. Thank you!