Testimonials of women recounting how they regained their femininity after breast cancer: "my fight was to try not to suffer"
Each year, nearly 50,000 breast cancers are diagnosed in France. On the occasion of the Pink October operation, which highlights the national mobilization against this scourge, franceinfo collected the testimony of four women who had to face the disease and undergo a mastectomy. Having a breast removed is far from trivial for a woman. Suddenly, she becomes someone who is scary and who is no longer an object of desire. And what about the inner ravages. Terror in the face of the diagnosis, cancer, which brutally confronts its own mortality. Terror in the face of medical examinations that follow one another without having any grip. Mammography, ultrasound, puncture, MRI, scintigraphy…. A whirlwind of medical jargon, an endless litany. Then comes the sanction: the breast must be removed.
The sentence seems simple, the reality is much less so. For some, the doctors believe that surgery will be enough and they are offered the removal and reconstruction of the breast in the same operation. They must then decide whether to opt for a prosthesis or a muscle autograft (latissimus dorsi in the back or rectus in the abdomen). A complex choice that they must make while they are still in shock from the diagnosis and are unable to measure the consequences, both physical and psychological. For others, chemotherapy and radiotherapy will precede or follow the amputation. And it will take at least a year for the tissues to regenerate before reconstructing a breast.
Lætitia, Patricia, Marie and Gaëlle have experienced all of this. Like them, 5,000 to 7,000 women choose reconstruction out of the approximately 20,000 women who undergo mastectomy each year. They also decided to cover the scars with tattoos to draw a line under the cancer and find themselves "sexy" again.
Lætitia: "After the radiotherapy, I wanted to do the reconstruction right away. But we had to wait a year"
Lætitia, 48, a teacher, discovered that she had cancer in 2017.
I was diagnosed in March 2017, during a control mammogram. They kept me for an immediate puncture. Three weeks later, my gynecologist tells me that it's a cancerous tumor not serious, that we were going to remove it, a little radiotherapy and we wouldn't talk about it anymore. A few days later I have a breast MRI and instead of one tumor they find two. In the end, I was told at the hospital that the breast would be removed. It was a shock. My daughter at the time was 10 years old. I live alone with her. I remember hanging out for over an hour before going home trying to figure out how I was going to get things out.
Automatically, we are afraid of dying. I had friends who were there but not necessarily as we hear it. One of my best friends came to see me. And when in the car, she started crying, I told her: "I'm sending you home today". I had to face what was happening to me. It was out of the question for me to have to comfort other people.
The intervention is not at all prepared in the psychological sense by the hospital. I remember seeing the service psychologist and faced with her incompetence to answer my questions, I ended up asking her if she had a bibliography on the subject. The surgeon made me diagrams but nobody approaches what symbolically that represents. I needed to review photos of my daughter when I was breastfeeding her. This intervention was immediately a disaster for me, it was unthinkable. Afterwards, there was an announcement of chemo, because out of six lymph nodes removed, there were three with cancerous cells. It was getting worse and worse.
The night after the premiere, I thought I was going to die, I was so sick. In January-February 2018, I had radiotherapy. It was a little less difficult but I still had burns in my esophagus so much that there was a time when I couldn't eat or drink. This is all violence! I have never had cancer pain. Cancer, for me, is marked on a piece of paper, I have never felt it in my body. And from the moment they started treating me, that's when I started to get sick. In my head, it was very difficult to bring all that together. It is difficult to integrate.
After radiotherapy, I wanted to do the reconstruction straight away. But we had to wait a year for the fabrics not to be too damaged. I had chosen to do a reconstruction with my own tissues so that it would be final, no longer go on the operating table. They had to take a piece of my upper gluteus to make an autograft. The intervention, instead of lasting 5h30 lasted 8 hours because the surgeon had difficulty in vascularizing, in connecting the artery and the vein. Finally, after 48 hours, the vascularization gave way so we had to go back to the block to remove everything. And there, the choice became even more complicated: I was on morphine, with the shock of this missed intervention, and it was necessary to decide in five minutes if I accepted the surgeon's solution to take a piece of the latissimus dorsi this time. . The operation lasted four hours. Bad luck, I had a pneumothorax in the block which didn't show up until the next day so I went to the block a third time for a drain break.
In the end, I stayed 13 days in the hospital. Clearly, today, I regret having made the choice to accept this intervention since I have consequences. In my left arm, I have a loss of strength. I can't carry a water pack, push a heavy door. I also have recognition as a disabled worker. I was on sick leave for three years. Afterwards I had four other lighter operations, on an outpatient basis, since it was necessary to remove fat to add to the breast to create volume. And with the health crisis, the interventions have been postponed. The last one took place at the end of August 2021.
I spent my time looking for solutions on my own. I came across the blog of an American who started making silicone nipples. The surgeon offered me a tattoo but there is no volume. The silicone nipples hold with a special glue for a week. She does custom work. I am super satisfied and the surgeon found it stunning too. Afterwards, I started looking for a tattoo artist to cover the scars. I have an appointment in December. I was not at all attracted to tattooing. But I have to find solutions that work for me. It was not a fight against an illness. My fight was to try not to suffer.
Patricia: "I didn't want to see pity in people's eyes"
Patricia, 44, works in the bank. She found out she had cancer in 2017.
During a self-examination, I found a small lump in the breast which was a little painful. It was in 2017. I passed in the wake of mammography, ultrasound, and they found nothing. As I was worried, I started meetings again two years later, in September 2019. And there, the fight was over. The senologist [doctor specializing in breast diseases] sees something. He doesn't put any curves on it but reschedules me for a mammogram and sends me home with a slew of appointments without telling me more. Puncture fifteen days later and scanner. And there, when I see his screen as he explains to me that I have to start the protocol, I felt a little uneasy. I understood that it was very very serious. I have a master's degree in biology and I understood right away. I was in the highest classification.
When I was 18, I had Hodgkin's disease [cancer that affects the lymphatic system] and I had already had chemo and radiotherapy. We couldn't do radiotherapy again because I had already had my chest irradiated when what was in my breast was very small and could have been removed. We had to choose another protocol, ablation and deep down, that was the option I wanted because I didn't want another chemo. It relieved me. I was aware of the trauma to come but my priority at that time was not my femininity. But the next day, I was in a life-threatening emergency for an intestinal obstruction. A colon tumor was discovered. It was not very extensive and without the occlusion, we would not have seen it. My problem today is this sword of Damocles above my head, this immense fear that at the turn of an exam, something will be rediscovered to me. At 18, Hodgkin's disease, ok. At 44, breast cancer, complicated but ok. But the colon, I thought I wouldn't overcome.
I had immediate reconstruction. My morphology was complicated, I was too skinny so the dorsal flap was not the best option. I let myself be guided for an immediate reconstruction by prosthesis, more harmonious, according to the surgeon. And it was less burdensome as an intervention. This prosthesis was not great, too small and I had pain several months after the operation. And when I looked at myself, I didn't like to see the lack of harmony between the left breast and the right breast. I preferred my redone breast to my natural breast. I consulted a plastic surgeon who told me that he could do better but that the prosthesis in place had to be removed. And as I was planning to have the second breast removed as a precaution, he said to me: "We remove everything and you will remain six months with nothing to mourn your breasts."
At the second operation, I came out with two bigger breasts and completely liberated. I loved my redone breasts, even without the nipples. I like my cleavage, my morphology. At first, I was considering the tattoo of areolas and nipples in trompe l'oeil. But I'm not looking to get my breasts back. I'm covered in scars. But I like my boobs the way they are. This is my story, it is like that. Vis-à-vis my spouse it is complicated even if he has shown a lot of support. When someone touches my breasts, I feel like someone is sticking needles into my flanks. It breaks the libido, we must not lie to ourselves. Even before my intervention, I had looked on the internet for cover tattoos. I think the page will really turn after the tattoo. It will help me in my couple to find the harmony that existed before.
If we don't accept things, we don't move forward. What happened will not define my future. I have a 13 year old boy, another who will be nine years old. Every moment is precious. I was supported but I felt like I was alone. Yet I had everyone around me. What disturbed me for the breast, and power 10 for the colon, was the announcement to relatives. When I called my spouse to tell him that I was going to wear a pouch, that a tumor had been found, he told me: "It's not possible". I didn't want to see pity in people's eyes or feel sad for me. I couldn't absorb their emotions. A bit like when a doctor announces the diagnosis of cancer, when loved ones have pity, you feel condemned. So no, we want to fight. People associate cancer with death. I am on my third and I see myself as my grandmother, going until 94 years old. I project myself into a long life.
Gaëlle: "I have a drawing on my breast and I continue to be a great lover, life is beautiful"
Gaëlle, 53, coach and consultant, discovered that she had cancer at the end of 2016.
At the end of 2016, I went to my gynecologist for the annual visit and when he did the palpation of the breasts, he had the impression of feeling some strange balls and he told me that it would be good if the mammo that I did every two years, I do it faster. At the mammo, I was told that I had to do a puncture. And the result of the biopsy is that there was a carcinoma.
The senologist called me at the end of the week to ask me to call him back. In the afternoon, I had a snack with some friends and I said to them: I think I have cancer. He sent me to see a surgeon. I was able to have an appointment two weeks later. And it was weird. For fifteen days, in fact, I was super calm. I waited quite patiently for the appointment. I didn't make a world of myself until I knew what I had. And it's just with hindsight where I said to myself that really, the gynecologist had been below everything. The type of cancer I had, it was written on the biopsy, it was an intraductal cancer, therefore the least serious cancer of the breast cancers that exist. And it seems totally absurd to me that he didn't explain it to me, I find that really amazing, lamentable.
The surgeon told me: "We have to operate, we have to do x-rays. Initially, it was just to remove a piece, a "piece" as they say. But I had been warned that they were going to look if the periphery of the "room" was healthy and if ever there was still cancer, it would be necessary to go back to the billiards. And indeed, the healthy border was not of sufficient size. There remained two possibilities: either I was removed one more piece, fine, they removed the breast with immediate reconstruction. And I remember the surgeon, adorable and very flirtatious, who said to me: "If I were you, I would rather remove the whole breast because if you remove one more piece, on arrival it won't look like anything." So I said banco, take everything off! They only offered me the prosthesis but it suited me very well.
The rest of the operation took a little time. I was put on a temporary prosthesis, a kind of half-flat membrane that is placed under the pectoral muscle. We filled her with saline for three weeks, once a week, to make room for the breast. And once it is inflated properly, we wait six months before reoperating to put on a slightly softer prosthesis.
Afterwards, I did a little surgery to add some fat. And afterwards, they lifted the right breast to put them back at the same height. This is where I freaked out the most because you also have to lift the nipple and there is a risk of cutting a nerve and losing breast sensitivity. And it drove me a little crazy because I only had one breast left with erotic sensations. And on the other side, they made me a fake areola with a piece of skin and taking half of the nipple that was left. I hesitated with the 3D tattoo but I still found it nicer than under sweaters, the two nipples pointing. But I had seen the boob tattoos and thought I would treat myself to it when it was all over. The idea was: someone stole my breast, so to reclaim my body, I'm going to draw it. It was taken from me, it was stolen from me, I am going to have it tattooed. However, tattooing is not really my thing. I like bare skin. And then I thought to myself when I'm old, what am I going to look like with my flower on my wrinkled and saggy breasts. But since it was a promise I made to myself, I went to see Patricia.
>> "There is always a scar and women no longer want to see it": tattooing to erase the stigma of breast cancer
You don't see your chest the same way anymore. I no longer looked at myself in the mirror because, breasts operated on or not, it never stopped me from undressing, from getting naked in front of a man. They accept me as I am. However, when we look at each other, it's really beautiful, I really have a work of art on my breast and I love it. I am proud of myself too, of this journey. And my revenge on the disease is that I no longer wear a bra. Life is beautiful, I have a drawing on my breast and I continue to be a great lover. It's happiness.
Marie: "I want to free myself but I am scarred in my body"
Marie, 47, works for the city of Paris in cultural affairs. She found out she had cancer in 2016.
Five years ago, I had milk coming out of my chest. However, I had stopped breastfeeding about a year and a half earlier. So it wasn't quite normal. It didn't really worry me. I even delayed making an appointment with the gynecologist. At the ultrasound, the radiologist told me: "We have to do a mammogram because there is a vascular ball." I thought he was overzealous. But my gynecologist made me do an emergency biopsy. I found out on May 10. The gynecologist called me and told me in her office that I had breast cancer. A malignant tumor of 1.3 cm.
It's surreal. It feels like we're talking about someone else. We are not there, we take our body out a little, as if we were observing the situation from afar. I think of my family. My daughter is 4 years old and my son 2 years old when I learn it. I focused on the fear of cancer from my companion whose father had died of cancer at 33, when he was 6 years old. I was very afraid that he was sick with cancer, but I was not at all. There was no cancer in my family. And suddenly, I become the weak link.
The same afternoon, I was received by the oncologist in Saint-Louis who explained to me from the start that I was going to have surgery and then do chemo and radiotherapy. I'm doing a breast MRI. I have four tumors and not one. I break down, I understand that it is not good. And I begin the obstacle course: pelvic and abdominal ultrasound, brain MRI, bone scintigraphy... At each appointment, I'm afraid of what they're going to tell me when I leave. Fortunately, no metastases are found elsewhere. It lasted three weeks when I tell myself that maybe it's the end of my life, that I'm 42 and that's it, I've played everything.
The imaging center does not relay to the doctor, no one calls me. Some acquaintances then directed me to a professor at the public hospital. He reads my file in two seconds, tells me that the breast must be removed and asks what I do in the afternoon. It's May 23, it's a morning and it's raining heavily. And it's my daughter's 4th birthday. He gave me an uppercut. He sends me to a very chic hospital in Neuilly where I am told that it is for next week. I went back to Saint-Louis Hospital. I wandered down the halls and ran into my oncologist. She saw me right away, called the imaging center. I had asked for punctures on each tumor. I still hoped to save my breast. But no. I saw marked carcinoma, carcinoma, carcinoma, carcinoma. Appointment in stride with the surgeon and I was operated on June 8th. I experienced that as an assault.
July 8, first chemo, a test of mental strength. The body collects, collects and then deteriorates. I found myself menopausal at 42, no more libido. It's hard. It lasted six months. At the end, I'm exhausted. I feel like I'm 90. I can't climb stairs normally. I can't speak without getting out of breath. I am barely able to read stories to my children. After the chemo continued with a lighter molecule for a year and a half, every three weeks. I come out of chemo completely flat. I lost a lot of weight. And I move on to radiotherapy which I am very afraid of. I was accompanied by an energy specialist, an acupuncturist, a naturopath, a physiotherapist… It helped me but it came at a cost. My family supported me too. When I had chemo, my mother, my mother-in-law or my sister took the children. My path has been rather shrouded in glitter compared to other women.
The reconstruction took a long time because you had to wait a year after the radiotherapy. My physio, who has been caring for women living with breast cancer for years, advised me against flap reconstruction because of the scars and the difficulty in recovering. As I had undergone an axillary dissection, I had already had to undergo rehabilitation to move my arm again. So I preferred prostheses. I'm quite happy with my reconstruction, but there was still a great void to inhabit on this nippleless and nippleless chest, a little damaged in the war. I remembered photos of women who had done tattoos and I had found a super beautiful, even sexy. I looked for a tattoo artist. Today, I finally have something beautiful, I find my tattoo sexy and bringing sexy to this place that has been butchered, it's huge. This was the end point of the physical reconstruction. Then there is the reconstruction of femininity. A man rejected me when he saw. He totally freaked out. It blocks me now. I want to free myself. But coming out of cancer… I am marked in my body, I cannot help saying it, having this lightness in the encounter.
