A Very Boob Surgery Birthday

Not the kind of beauty indulgence I had hoped for.

Apr 21, 2023

Content warning: blood and nudity

I can’t tell Susannah.

That’s my first thought when I find the lump.

Susannah, my friend from Canada, is arriving tomorrow. Actually—since it’s 1:30am when I find the lump—tonight. I’ve been excited about her visit for weeks.

She’s coming for a holiday. She’s not here to deal with heavy real life stuff. I’m just going to have to spend the next 6 days pretending things are fine.

At this point, I remember that I’m a terrible liar. You could see me lying from Saturn. I also remember a decision I made recently: that when it comes to people I care about, I’m no longer going to pretend that things are fine when they’re not.

The lump was in my boob, as you’ve probably guessed by now. I rolled over in my sleep and there it was. After the Susannah decision, and a few minutes of no-thought, shocked brain, I remember that people find boob lumps all the time, and that usually, it’s nothing.

But I don’t stay with that story for long. As any worrier knows, the more you worry about something, the less chance it has of actually happening. I worry for a good few hours, in the darkness. I wake up the poet and he tries to disguise his worry, assuring me it’s probably nothing.

Finally, it occurs to me that if it isn’t nothing, I’m going to stop doing all the things I do because I feel obliged to. I will become one of those people who gives zero fucks.

With this thought, I fall back asleep.

The next morning, I lunge for my phone to message two friends—one is a doctor, the other found a lump a year ago that turned out to be nothing—only to realize I’d texted them both in the middle of the night.

It’s probably nothing, they both say.

But get it checked.

It's my 46th birthday the day after Susannah arrives. Like most human women, I have been trying to adjust to the new number for a while. Traditionally, I acknowledge aging by indulging in some kind of beauty treatment, which, let’s be honest, involves attempting to look younger. But lately I’ve been reading

Jessica DeFino

's The Unpublishable, which has been opening my eyes to how fucked up our cultural obsession with not aging is. It has helped, a lot.

Have I entirely succeeded in loving my elevens or my crow’s feet? Not yet.

Do I guiltily, in February, inquire about microneedling? Maybe.

But Susannah is coming, so I had postponed making any decisions until after she leaves.

I text her when she lands in Istanbul. In the spirit of not pretending, I don’t sugar-coat it.

I found a lump in my boob. It’s probably nothing, but I wanted you to know.

She writes back right away, calm and supportive. This inspires me to tell some 12-step buddies and a few more friends, and all of them are reassuring. In fact, so many people tell me how it was nothing for them or their sister or friend that even though I can’t get an appointment to see the surgeon for another 5 days, I manage, mostly, to put the whole thing aside.

I pick up Susannah at the airport. We have a glorious birthday, soaking in natural hot springs, wandering in an ancient city, eating too much ice cream. Over the next few days, the poet and I take her hiking and to the beach and exploring through Grape Village. She and I talk about our relationships and our families; our careers and the things we are working on changing about ourselves. We make Schitt’s Creek jokes and eat every Turkish carb in existence. It’s so reassuring having her here, and, because I am a tuned in, paying-attention kind of person, it doesn’t occur to me until after she leaves what a miracle the timing of her visit was.

She’s still here when I have the appointment with the surgeon. He feels around my boob and doesn’t seem too concerned, but since I’d just had a mammogram two months ago, he sends me to get an ultrasound. The ultrasound ladies don’t seem concerned, either. Thank god that’s over with, I think, and the poet and I join Susannah and Django for breakfast while we wait for the results.

But when we go back to the hospital, the surgeon says that there’s a 99% chance the lump is nothing, but because of the size, but he wants me to have it taken out.

It will be day surgery with local anaesthetic, he explains. Then they’ll do a biopsy.

All I hear is “surgery,” and “because of the size”.

All I can think is that 99% is not 100%.

And why wouldn’t that 1% be me?

We get second opinions from two other doctors. Everyone concurs: it should come out.

I’ve never had surgery before. It’s scheduled for 3 days after Susannah goes back to Canada.

After she leaves, I slump around, caffeinating myself to get through the days, because it’s probably nothing, barely sleeping at nights.

My dad and the poet both come to the hospital for the surgery. It’s not covered by my insurance, and is pricey by Turkish standards, but also, as far as I’m aware, going from lump discovery to surgery in a week and a half is currently unheard of in my home country.

They put me in a private room, all wood-panelled and plush with a couch and an ensuite bathroom. We make jokes about how it should come with champagne. An hour ticks by. An hour and a half. We make awkward small talk about TV shows, the car, the burning point of olive oil. At one point, tucked into the soft bed in my hospital gown, I almost fall asleep.

There’s a knock on the door. A nurse comes in and puts an IV hookup in my arm. She has a translator with her who explains that this is “just in case” they need to plug me into something. “The worst is over!”, the translator announces.

The nurse says that the surgery will be in another two hours. The poet goes out to get me some food.

“So the surgeon just comes in here with all his equipment?” I ask, munching away after he returns.

He looks at me strangely.

“Um… they will not do the surgery in this room.”

I sit up.

“What?”

“They will do it in an operating room.”

“But it’s only local anaesthetic,” I say, weakly.

“Yes, but they still need to be in an operating room.”

Things start to feel floaty and distant. I think about how many people go through this every day, in far less plush circumstances than this. How many have far scarier statistics than mine, or already know that what they are dealing with is not nothing. My friend Jasmine has had to sit and sometimes stand for days and weeks in a hospital 5 hours away, while her husband gets radiotherapy and chemo on a tumour on his face.

In no way do these thoughts help the way they are supposed to.

By the time another nurse knocks on the door and puts me on a stretcher and wheels me out of the room, my mind has spun out of control, like this is happening on a TV show I’ve accidentally walked into. The poet follows behind to translate, but they say that there will be a translator, and that he can’t come into the operating room. They wheel me away, into one of those big, white rooms with the huge silver UFO lights, and I wish to god I weren’t going to be awake for this. There are four men in there. I am about to be topless. A baby is howling mightily in the room next door.

And there’s no translator.

Having exhausted all other options, I start praying like a motherfucker.

I start with Buddhist mantras, but quickly simplify to “please god help me” with no spaces in between the words. One of the men positions both my arms into a T shape and straps them down. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. Why do I need to be held in place? What are they going to do to me? They tilt the thing I’m lying on so it’s slightly slanted downwards, and then tape something to my leg—I ask why, but no one answers. The doctor gives me the local anesthetic. Then all four men proceed to pore over my boobs, which I can no longer see as they have strung up a sheet between my head and the rest of my body.

I grip onto the cushioned platform things my arms are strapped to and imagine they are the hands of people I love. The men fiddle and prod and there is some kind of suction involved, and then a loud and deeply disturbing zinging noise. Smoke starts rising from behind the sheet.

Helpmegetthroughthis, helpmegetthroughthis.

The only word that the doctors are using that I can understand is “cauterize", which frankly is one word too many, especially while a bunch of men are pushing my boob back and forth. I can’t see the clock, so minutes or four hours pass as I pray and pray, thanking Christ, Buddha, Sarasvati and anyone else I can think of that I believe in something, because there’s no way in hell I could swing this otherwise.

A phone rings. It’s one of those obnoxious rings that makes everyone in the room jump, and it keeps going until someone answers it and, to my horror, holds it to the doctor’s ear. He chats away while he prods and cauterizes.

"HE’S BUSY RIGHT NOW,” I want to yell. Helpmehelpmehelp. Pleasegodhelpme.

Finally, it stops.

The doctor looks at me, gleefully.

“No cancer,” he says.

I breath a small sigh of relief, although I know I will not fully exhale until the biopsy results come in.

They sew me up, put me in a wheelchair and wheel me back to the room. My gown is soaked in blood, and they don’t replace it until the poet asks twice. Two hours later, the doctor comes to the room and tell us what’s going to happen next, and writes me a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics.

And that’s it.

My boob is covered in bandages for a couple of days, which is fine by me as I’m not psychologically ready to look at it. Then the doctor puts on a smaller bandage, and I get a glimpse of the stitches. They are big, and jagged. I am supernaturally tired for the next week. I google “fatigue after surgery” and finally stop judging myself, and stop doing things because I feel obliged to.

The stitches come out. The scar is not nearly as horrible as I’d thought. The weekend comes, and at the poet’s suggestion we drive to a seaside town a couple of hours away and spend the night. We wander aimlessly through the winding streets lined with seafood restaurants, drinking overpriced coffee and smiling at the touristy shops. The sky is deep grey, and we sit on a white pebble beach with Django, watching the waves. It is so beautiful. I am so lucky. I wish I could remember that a lot more often than I do.

When we return, I get a text that the biopsy results are in. We go to the hospital for to get them from the doctor.

All clear, he says.

I will go back in three months for another scan.

And I will not get any anti-aging treatments for my birthday this year.

Not even a facial.

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