Fake

Did you know that getting a prosthetic breast and the undergarment to wear with it requires a prescription? That there are women liscenced to fit these? (At least, I hope all these practitioners are women. . .) That this isn't something you can stroll into the unmentionables department at Nordstrom's to procure?

Yep. Fake breasts are big business. The non-surgical kind are, too.

I made my appointment for Wednesday afternoon, while the kids were at Betsy's for a few days because of the port surgery. I didn't really want to go because I was feeling ambivalent about getting one. It would be a sad sort of errand, wouldn't it?

So I invited Mandy to come with me. Oh Mandy! Her personality is a thousand wat light bulb. The one person who can make any gathering into a party. A wonderful friend who makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Absolutely my go-to girl for an errand like this. When I asked her, she was so excited about the prospect. To give evidence that she wasn't just humoring her friend, she shouted, "I love boobs!"

What, exactly, was I looking to get? Well, right now I'm trapped between two worlds. It's not an option to wear nothing under my shirt. I can wear a long ace bandage as a wrap as I did after surgery, which has quite the flattening effect. I can wear my athletic support, which does the job, and is the most comfortable, but looks ridiculous, or I can wear something fake and go back to looking like I did 8 weeks ago.

The advantage of the athletic support is the comfort factor. The disadvantage is that I go along my merry way not thinking about recent events and then I approach a glass door, or the car windows and see my reflection and it's like a slap in the face: Oh. I'd forgotten about that for a moment.

(Interestingly, I've been in public a lot lately and no one has ever looked twice or been caught up in a staring-at-the-ghastly. It's not all that noticeable at first glance. And where, as a 34 year old house wife and mother, would I be going that anyone would do more than glance? It's really about what I'm seeing, and not what others aren't noticing anyway.)

The advantage to the fake thing is that my clothes fit like they are supposed to, and I like being closer to the Hour-Glass and farther away from the Pear. The disadvantage is that it's. . .fake. I haven't been able to wrap my mind around that yet.

What was I looking for? The option to have my shirts look symetrical. The option to have my clothing fit.

Mandy and I went to my appointment. It was nice to have someone to gab with as we waited. The business sells prosthetics of all sorts, not just breasts, but still: Does it seem inappropriate to you that this place had a few children's picture books and that one of them was Dolly Parton's?

The fitter came out. Her name was Mandy, too, so I'll call her Mandy Jo for our purposes. She led us to a fitting room decorated with 2 wingback chairs, several robes hanging from hooks, fake ivy streaming all about and luxurious linens covering the table that houses her wares. Mandy Jo was very proud of this, told us how she'd decorated it herself, and while it was. . .nice, it was akin to those flower-patterned stickers from the mammogram.

We got down to business. First of all, the bras there--special because there is a pocket in the cup to hold the prosthetic--had names. Each style, known by a name. I am copying them from the booklet that accompanied my products:

Wendy's Poise
Regan's Dream
Shari's Flair
Helen's Charm
Sarah's Karma
Jennie's Pride
Linda's Glory
Lacey's Answer

There is a Facebook Quiz to be made out of this. I can feel it. But I can't quite make out all the details. . .

Mandy Jo took a look at the prosthetics. Mandy Jo pulled out the Old School number and went from there, model by model. There was a foam one. Then foam with a weight in it. Then silicone. ("This one passes the hug test. If someone hugs you, it feels just like a real one.") Then, eventually, silicone with microbeads.

The mood was light through all this. It was pretty interesting to see the technology evolve. I thought about how my insurance would be paying for everything, and what a luxury it was to just pick out what I wanted without even asking about the price.

Then I said, as I held the microbeads model, "So this is the Cadillac of fake breasts?"

And Mandy's eyes grew bright, her eyebrows shot up and she said, impishly, "Oh, no! Wait until you see this," and she reached for a purple hat-box shaped case, un-zipped it and pulled out. . .a . . .fake breast.

My jaw dropped open. It, it, it looked like some woman had died and donated her breast to science. My Mandy said, "Is that a freckle on the side?"

And Mandy Jo said, "Oh yes, look how realistic it is. It even has a vein." Oh, how proud Mandy Jo was of that vein! It snaked along the side. Blue. Thick. From the corner down to the nipple, skirting right by one of the freckles.

I burst out laughing. A deep belly laugh, and then Mandy did, too. Yes, it was funny, but it was also absurd. I said, between gasps and as I teared up from the laughter, "Who am I trying to fool????"

Mandy Jo was deer-in-the-headlights shocked and confused. So Mandy leaned towards her and said, between her own laughs, "Her husband knows she had the surgery."

Mandy Jo still didn't know what to do with us and our reaction. She continued on with her sales pitch as normally scripted. "You would glue this on, then paint over the edges, and you wouldn't need to wear a special prosthetic bra with it." Still, we were laughing a little, and I realized that I was wiping away more and more tears. She went on, "We call this a non-surgical reconstruction."

Yeah. You're constructing something all right. . .

And then, as she continued to hold it out, that realistic, positively grotesque prop, I started crying for real. I whispered, "That is so horrifying. I don't ever want to see that again."

Poor Mandy Jo. She apologized and said she'd never horrified anyone before. No, no, it's not your fault, we said, and so on. I collected myself. We proceeded. She could keep her Cadillac, I'd take the one a step lower.

Mandy agreed with me, after we left, that it was a horrifying thing to look at. I don't want my fake breast to look real. I don't want to have to look at what was cut off of me and then glue it back onto my body. And I'm having a hard time picturing the psychology of a woman who would. What does she say to the fitter? "I know anyone I'm actually intimate with will know this is a piece of rubber, but I like to expose my breast flesh to the public even though I don't have a breast there anymore."

There is a profound tragedy in that, isn't there?

I don't know. Mandy Jo swears that other women love that Cadillac. So good for them. I hope they find it helpful.

I, on the other hand, just want my shirt to look normal.

Did this kind of feel like a sucker punch to you? That I went from something kind of amusing into something pretty horrible and sad? That day felt like a sucker punch to me. Grief is like this, isn't it? Grief sneaks up on you. There's no telling what will trigger it. This is the first time I've ever experienced laughter that heads around the corner and runs into tears coming from the opposite direction. I told Bryan all about my day, and again laughed when I got to that stupid, ugly breast with a fricking vein on it, and again started crying when I pictured it in my mind's eye.

But grief isn't the enemy. Tears aren't anything to avoid. It's just another emotion that deserves its due as much as the others. And when I find myself in a "moment," I try to let it ride, and I say to myself, "This never lasts long. Joy isn't going anywhere."


A note on costs: The prosthetic itself was $360. Why doesn't Gloria Vanderbilt (or whoever) make a line of these and sell them at Target for 50 bucks a pop? It doesn't seem right that there is a monopoly on breast prosthetics, does it?

So it's in my drawer now. With the two special garments to hold it. (With military Tri-Care, I get 2. But Medicare pays for 8 garments a year! If you're old enough to be on Medicare, why do you need 8 bras every year????)

I'm not sure if and when I'll wear it. For hanging out with my kids in the cul de sac? Not likely. Or if Bryan says he wants to take me out to dinner, will I say, "Hold on a sec--Let me go put my boob on"? I don't know. Good to know it's there. Not great that it has a reason to be there. And I guess that's the part I'm still getting used to.