Mastectomies aren’t pretty. None of us pretended that what we were seeing was something other than it is. Her breasts are no longer there. In their place are large horizontal scars, some sagging skin that was saved for reconstruction, and two drainage tubes.

She cried, she touched, she turned and showed. She made comments both about the severity of her scars as well as how it wasn’t as bad as what she imagined it could be. She turned to her husband and he grabbed the drainage bags and pretended he was squeezing them like air pumps. “You look a little deflated there honey; let me help pump these back up!” We all laughed.

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