My Scars Tell a Story

Mommy has an ouchy boo boo.

Kalli has nipples. Mommy has no nipples.

Mommom (aka grandma) has boobs. Mommy has no boobs.

Can I touch it?

Scars are a big topic in our family. My two year old daughter, Kalli, is more aware of nipples and boobs than your average toddler.

I’m covered in scars. And I’m okay with that. Because my scars tell a story.

There’s the time I stepped on an oyster the day before Christmas. My mom and I were walking on the beach. She was ahead and fell waist deep into quicksand. I jumped in after her to pull her out and stepped on an oyster, slicing my foot. I stuffed a tissue into my sandals and walked a mile back to the car before we drove to the hospital.

There’s the time I scooped out a chunk of my knee with a barnacle. I was cleaning our family’s oyster bed and pulled out the cage, bumping it across my knee. The hospital said it was good I came in since there were reports of flesh eating bacteria in the water.

There’s my port scar. When I was hospitalized for neutropenic fever, the docs couldn’t get any blood out of my port. They wanted to stick me with another needle to get the blood. But I insisted they let me try some yoga moves first. I did jumping jacks and handstands and they finally got the blood to flow while I did downward dog on my hospital bed.

But most notably, there are my double mastectomy scars. A huge lopsided winky face drawn across my chest replacing my once perky Size C knockers.

I didn’t know flat was an option.

Doctors sent me straight to the plastics department, and I was immediately handed jiggly bags of saline and silicon. “Feel how natural the silicon is compared to the saline!”

But I hesitated…

Weren’t there risks for putting foreign materials into my body?

Barely! These are medical grade materials… super safe! (incorrect)

But wouldn’t this require multiple surgeries?

Yes, but we recommend women focus on their long term goals, not the immediate challenges…

But I’m a new mom… I care deeply about my here and now. Every moment I’m away from my baby, unable to hold her, is a lifetime to me.

Oh honey… maybe you’d be a good candidate to go flat.

Flat, what is that?

When I told my main doctor my decision to go flat, she asked if my husband was okay with it.

I was horrified at the scars when I first amputated my breasts. I was purple and bruised, hunched over and beat up. I had panic attacks that left me curled up on the floor gasping for air whenever I peeked at the Frankenstein experiment adorning my chest.

But I’m not one to wallow. My scars smoothed out and I got stronger (physically and emotionally).

And then one day, in the midst of radiation treatments, I went on a bike ride. At the top of a crest, the Golden Gate Bridge shining in the background, I asked my husband to take a photo of me, hefting my bike over my head… topless.

“But Emily,” my husband pushed back, “there are people around!”

I looked at him incredulously, “I don’t have any boobs, let them look!”

“You’re right,” he replied sheepishly, “force of habit.”

And with that I realized, I didn’t need to hide my scars. I am young, strong, sexy, flat and fierce. I show my scars to my daughter, I whip my top off when I have hot flashes around my friends, and I’m not afraid to show my scars to the world. My scars tell my story and I’m proud.

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