Page 90 of While I’m Still Here

Things I never thought mattered are becoming precious purely because somebody gave them an expiry date.

Twelve days.

Twelve fucking days.

Then somebody is going to draw on me.

Somebody is going to wheel me into a room.

Somebody is going to put me to sleep.

And when I wake up, parts of me I've had since I was a teenager will be gone.

My hands fly back to my chest as though I can protect them from something that isn't even happening yet. I cup both breasts against my palms and hold them there, which is completely fucking pointless because the person who agreed to have them removed is me.

That's the part my brain can't seem to reconcile.

I chose this.

I chose this.

I chose this.

And I desperately don't want it.

A horrible sound comes out of me, something between a sob and a gasp, and I press my forehead against my knees because I can't bear the mirror anymore. “I don't want them to take you.”

There.

I've finally lost my fucking mind.

I'm talking to my breasts.

Worse, I'm begging them.

“I don't want them to take you. I don't. I don't. I don't.”

The words begin running into each other until I'm not even sure I'm saying them aloud anymore. My entire body shakes with the force of it. Somewhere in the sensible part of my brain, the part that has spent the last few weeks sitting through appointments and listening carefully and asking questions, I know exactly why this is happening. I know cancer doesn't care whether I'm emotionally prepared. I know surgery isn't a punishment. I know nobody is doing this to me.

But grief apparently doesn't give a shit about informed consent.

Grief doesn't care that I signed the paperwork.

Grief doesn't care that I understand the reasoning.

Grief only knows that I have two breasts tonight and soon I won't.

“I changed my mind.”

For one completely irrational second, relief floods through me.

I changed my mind.

Fine.

That's it.

I won't do it.