I haven’t talked about my breast cancer and mastectomy in a while. I put it on the back burner, but, today, I had an appointment to be fitted for a prosthetic and new bras. I was shown all the styles of bras available and then off to the fitting room which doubles as the wig fitting room. The first prosthetic made me have small versions of bullet breast’s a la Pam of PamDora’s Box. Now, in her illustrations, they are quite cute and perky, but on me, let’s just say, it was not a pretty picture.

Another problem is that I am round, firm, and fully packed, but I have an A cup. I have never been able to find bras that fit comfortably and, the bras I was interested in were not available in my size.

Melt down. The fitter left to rummage in the storage room for something that would work for me. My eyes began to well up with tears. I went into my meditation mantra: ” I am aware that I am breathing in; I am aware that I am breathing out.” Just be calm, I told myself, when what I wanted to do was bolt from that place and never return. I looked up and saw about 25 pairs of doe eyed heads with identical, insipid smiles, each wearing a different color and style of wig staring at me. It’s a good thing that I have a well honed sense of humor because it saved the day.

She came back with a “tear drop” shaped boob and another style of bra and voila!, I looked pretty darn “au natural”. After having a fiberfill boob for 6 weeks, I keep touching this thing and marvelling at how natural it feels. I even had Steve give it a feel! He agreed. I don’t know if he got a thrill – he was on a work related conference call at the time!!

A bathing suit, however, is not in my immediate future.