Something about having had breast cancer makes me feel not so modest about my boobies. They’ve been poked, prodded, smashed, sliced, diced, poisoned, and radiated—not to mention reduced in size by four pounds long before cancer was an issue—which kind of makes them belong as much to the medical profession as they do to me. Given the public showing of my breasts over the past few years, I don’t hesitate to share with you what may seem a fairly personal issue.
I’ve been in the market for a new bra lately. Spurred on by a wedding I’m attending in one week—congrats Annie and Keith—I figured it was high time I purchase a new contraption for holding my ta-tas in place. So off I went to a local department store this weekend where I asked a sales associate, “Can you tell me where I can find your minimizers?” A minimizer is a type of bra that, well, minimizes breasts. I wore them before surgery took my full figure away and for some reason, I’ve been wearing them ever since. I guess they were familiar and comfortable and so I never upgraded my bra selection. Until now.
The woman who fielded my minimizer question was shocked I’d ask for such a bra. Looking at me—I was wearing a form-fitting winter coat at the time—she told me she couldn’t even tell I had boobs. I looked that flat. I simply should not be wearing anything of a minimizing nature, this woman told me. Pancakes are what I had, she said. My perfectly sculpted breasts, in all of their size 34C glory, had become nothing more than pancakes. Flat, squashed pancakes. This was unacceptable, my helper friend implied as she declared, “I don’t want you looking like that.”
“OK, then,” I told her. “Find me something better.” And she did.
I’m now wearing a barely-there-light-push-up bra. The transformation, which has turned my pancakes perky, may seem small. But to me—and a few others who have taken notice—this bra rocks. And it’s only now I realize I should have been showing off my girls long ago.
Clearly, I can’t turn back the hands of time. But I do plan to proudly showcase my newly renovated second base. Watch out, Annie and Keith. Wait until you see these things in person.
I’m calling our holiday travels both fun and miserable. Our excursion to Virginia to see family was fun because we saw loved ones we hadn’t seen in nearly two years. Cousins played, adults visited, and memories were made. Our trek to Washington DC was fun because Joey, at almost seven years old, was primed for dashing up and down busy streets, posing by monuments, exploring museums, and splashing in the hotel pool.
I'm not finished reading her book yet—almost, just not quite—but I don't need to finish the final page to say that breast cancer survivor Kelly Corrigan's book 