âThe thing is,â the nurse told me, âif you choose to stay flat, you wonât be able to find any nice clothes.â
It was 2015, and, at 35, Iâd just been told that the baked-bean sized lump Iâd discovered behind my nipple was not a cyst, as the doctors had thought, but stage 3 invasive breast cancer. All my focus was on beating the disease. Worrying about what I might look like or be able to wear afterwards seemed ridiculously unimportant.
Sitting in the doctorâs office after learning Iâd have to have my breast removed, watching the surgeon take implants out of a drawer for me to look at, Iâd known instinctively that reconstruction wasnât for me. âActually,â Iâd said. âCan you just take the other breast off so that Iâll be symmetrical?â
At first, I was treated as if I was in shock. âYouâll be very flat,â warned my surgeon. I was offered the option of wearing a prothesis in a bra â but couldnât understand why Iâd want to wear a bra if I didnât have breasts. All I wanted was the knowledge that the tumour was gone; and when I woke up after my mastectomy and looked at my bandaged chest, all I felt was relief.
It took three years for my medical team to give up on asking me whether Iâd reconsidered. People thought my choice was unusual; many couldnât understand why I â a young woman in my 30s â would choose to live without breasts.
Iâm sure the same pressure isnât put on men who have testicular cancer; reconstruction is available, but is it pushed in the same way? Iâm happy with my choice to live flat. I still feel sexy, Iâm still able to dress well and Iâm still a woman â I donât see the need to undergo further surgery, have implants or wear protheses to prove that.
Whilst Iâm all for raising awareness of breast cancer, once youâve been through the disease, it can be galling to see the way this particular cancer is portrayed. Celebrity documentaries focus on the titillation of women getting their boobs out; googling mastectomy brings up pictures of Angelina Jolie. Breast cancer is promoted as pink and fluffy â you get diagnosed, you get a boob job and the youâre fine.
But for women who do opt for reconstruction, the decision isnât an easy one. Itâs not a boob job. Itâs not straightforward and itâs not an easy surgery. I think itâs important that women opt for it if itâs right for them, but encouraging women to have unnecessary surgery so that they fit societal norms seems wrong.
Having cancer has changed how I feel about my body. I value myself more â I appreciate being healthy and knowing my body is working as it should. And aside from the odd teenage boy sniggering on a train when Iâve worn a too-tight t-shirt, nobody really notices.
Most of us feel as if everyone is looking, everyone is judging, but actually Iâve found that â whatever the media tells us â no one pays much attention to the way others look. This realisation has helped me to be less body conscious: if they donât notice my chest, then they probably wonât notice if Iâve got a big bottom, or if Iâm carrying a little extra around my middle.
I donât always feel great about my appearance â Iâll get up in the morning and suddenly feel as if nothing in my wardrobe looks good. But, then, what woman doesnât? We all have off days, days when we feel we havenât got a thing to wear â we all have parts of our body weâre more or less happy with. Nothing has really changed.
In some ways, life without breasts is liberating. I can sleep on my front for the first time since puberty, and itâs a lot easier to run!
More importantly, I am fit and well. I am loved by my family and friends, old and new. I have a new career. I can still wear flattering clothes I feel confident in. I am still a woman. So, I wonder, what do others think implants and shifting my body muscle about, will add to my being? What is it that they think I am missing?
Sarah now blogs for Flat Friends â a charity whose mission is to let every woman in the UK know that living flat can be a positive choice.
Sarah Coombes told her story to Gillian Harvey.
