Amputating to Survive

There are moments that divide your life into two parts: before this, and after this.

Six years ago, I chose a prophylactic mastectomy due to genetic cancer risk. My immune system had always felt somewhat run down, frequent illnesses, never quite robust. But the deeper exhaustion came from the cycle of breast lumps, scans, and holding my breath while results determined whether life would continue as normal or fracture entirely.

The waiting was agonising. That does something to you.

I followed every protocol to be op-ready. I was as prepared as I could be. What I didn’t know, not 100% anyway, was that beneath dense breast tissue, undetected on scans, cancer was already there.

The surgery that felt preventative became life-saving. That realisation still humbles me.

Cancer has woven itself through my life like ivy, persistent, reaching, sometimes thorned. Beautiful from a distance. Invasive up close. It has shaped the architecture of my becoming in ways I am still uncovering.

The Immediate “After”

If I’m honest, the very first “after” was softened by very good pain medication, what I jokingly called my “happy juice.” I was in a haze, barely able to process what was happening, yet even then, there were moments of laughter.

There’s something almost merciful about that haze; your body and mind gently cushioned from the enormity of what just happened.

I still remember Day 1 post-op vividly: the plastic surgeon walked in, exclaiming “Oh shit!” at my left breast, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Even amidst fear, humour found its way through.

By Day 2, I wrestled with numbness down my leg, fevers, and a catheter that wouldn’t drain. While the team debated sending me back into surgery, I shuffled to a recliner, where my husband trying the hot air blanket declared, “Too hot for this little penguin!” Even in the haze, we laughed.

Those first three days I often reference, the haze, the drains, the first walk to the loo (there are many memories of the loo), sleeping six hours and feeling “human again”, they were only a snippet.

What followed wasn’t tidy.

I was in and out of hospital for weeks at a time. Complications. Infections. Additional procedures. Monitoring. Waiting. Recovering. Regressing. Recovering again. Healing wasn’t linear. It rarely is. 

At the time, I thought it was simply about surviving the physical trauma. I became detached from my body so the gravity of my emotions would not sweep me under.

But six years on, I see something deeper.

The compartmentalisation was also tied to survivor guilt.

Because this was a choice I made.

Because I didn’t require chemotherapy.

Because others endured more invasive treatment, more suffering, more loss.

Because my baby sister faced breast cancer at 35.

Because women I love, like my Mum, have walked harder roads.

Somewhere inside, I told myself I didn’t have the right to feel it as heavily.

So I muted it. Detached. Carried on.

It was both a shield and a quiet kind of self-denial, a coping mechanism that saved me, but also delayed some of my emotional processing.

Relief.

Grief.

Strength.

Numbness.

Sometimes they come one at a time. Sometimes all at once.

Amid the haze of it all, music threaded through memory. Hope, the song I danced to when I laboured with my two boys. Even broken open, I remembered that I had danced before. That joy had lived in this body too.

The Quiet Shock

The mastectomy was a double procedure, with both nipples removed. My breasts were reconstructed, what I now affectionately call my “foobs”, using tissue from my inner thighs. Incisions from groin to knee. Multiple follow-up surgeries. Healing layered upon healing.

My foobs are still not quite right.

A hysterectomy followed. Another surgery. Another surrender. Another quiet line in the sand. Another redefining of what my body would be able to hold, and what it would no longer carry. 

Surgical menopause arrived not gently, but decisively. 

What surprised me most wasn’t that menopause came, I knew it would. It was the acceleration. The way it seemed to sneak up overnight. The subtle but undeniable sense of aging, of something shifting at a cellular level.

Even when you are prepared, the body still moves at its own pace. 

I was surprised by how deeply I was attached to my femininity, and how much of it I felt I had lost.

It brought its own grief, its own recalibration of identity, hormones, sexuality, energy.

The Body, Rewritten

My body was rewritten again, not in one dramatic chapter, but in layered edits.

I was scheduled for nipple reconstruction this year. I know I’m not ready though. Not physically. Not mentally. 

Resetting everything back to zero feels like too much.

Body image has always been complex for me. Surgery, menopause, weight changes, lymphoedema, physical limitations, they added new terrain to navigate.

Yet paradoxically, I am healthier in some ways now than I was before. Health and aesthetic don’t always align. Strength doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.

I had always been driven. Resilient. Capable. 

Anxiety wasn’t something I wore obviously before surgery, but in the years since, it has surfaced more clearly. Though to be fair, the mastectomy happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s difficult to separate what was surgical, what was hormonal, and what was global uncertainty pressing down on all of us. Have any of us really recovered from it?

I had wonderful support from my husband, my boys, my family, my friends. During COVID, physical support was limited, but what was offered was incredible. And yet I sometimes wonder, would more support have helped? More women around me navigating the same terrain? More language for what I was experiencing?

Some transitions are survivable and still isolating.

Like hands that cannot sustain the remedial massage career I paused six years ago. That version of me still exists, but she has been buried beneath physical limitations and rewritten priorities.

Resilience remains, but it looks different.

Not push-through strength. Not white-knuckled endurance.

I have had to learn to listen to my body instead of fighting it. To respect limits rather than override them. To understand that resilience is not the same as pushing through.

Six years later, I am more emotionally attuned than I have ever been. More aware. More tender. Less invincible, and perhaps more whole because of that.

The Long Thread

Cancer has touched so many I love, and caused losses I cannot begin to describe the weight of.

My Nana when I was ten.

My Dad, my muse, when I was sixteen.

A best friend who visited me in hospital on her own treatment days, and who didn’t get to stay.

My former self.

Cancer feels like ivy, weaving its way through everything. Quiet. Persistent. Wrapping itself around milestones, memories, relationships.

And sometimes it has thorns.

Losing my friend carved something deep into me. Survivor guilt lives there too. I walked forward. She didn’t get to.

On Tuesday, February 24th, on my six-year mastectomy anniversary, I took a client case that hit close to home. Without sharing details, I can say this: 11 years into her journey, I was in awe of her progress, her strength, and her fragility. It reminded me of how far I have come, and how self-critical I can be. 

It reminded me that these “before and after” moments never fully disappear. They soften. They integrate. They shape how we show up for others.

It stirred something tender: grief, gratitude, recognition. The ache of survivor guilt. The weight of what I have endured. The privilege of not having needed further treatment like chemotherapy. Healing is not linear. Neither is reflection.

Six years on, I don’t have a perfectly packaged message.

Just this:

Sometimes the choices that feel preventative are actually life-saving.

Sometimes loss deepens you.

Sometimes femininity evolves instead of disappears.

Sometimes strength is quieter than it used to be.

And sometimes, you don’t realise how much you’ve grown until someone else’s story gently reflects your own.

Gratitude and tenderness can coexist. So can strength and softness.

Ivy Has Thorns

Now, another of my closest friends is navigating her own complex battle.

Loving her is both privilege and ache.

I adore her fiercely. Completely.

And if I’m honest, there is a silent fear. One I don’t dare speak of. I don’t need to. Sometimes in our conversations, I feel a mutual knowing, not of defeat, but of reality. Of fragility, not frailty, but that tender in-between space of strength and vulnerability. Of how precious this all is.

Watching her has stirred trauma in me I didn’t realise was still living in my body.

But it has also offered healing.

In loving her, supporting her, sometimes from afar, I am integrating what I once amputated. It is confronting. It is tender. It is necessary.

When I look at her, I see the woman I was during my own journey: steady, composed, battling quietly. And I want to show her what I learned:

Resilience is not self-abandonment.

Six Years On

There are moments that divide time: before this. After this.

Six years ago, I amputated tissue to survive.

I amputated emotion to survive.

I compartmentalised because the weight felt undeserved.

But I understand something differently now.

Survival is not a competition.

Grief is not comparative.

Love is not rationed.

The ivy may wind its way through my story, but so does strength.

So does tenderness.

So does laughter in hospital rooms.

So does music.

So do women who show up for one another in the middle of their own battles.

I no longer believe I have to sever parts of myself to stay afloat.

I can feel the weight and still stand.

I can love and still risk loss.

I can carry grief without comparing it.

Cancer has woven itself through my life.

But so has love.

And I am still here.

But the woman I was has been fundamentally rewritten.