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10/2/03a---2:13 PM
The young surgeon just called. The breasts are gone. They cut a circle around the nipple and remove the tissue through the hole. The reconstruction part is the long arduous part. The plastic surgeon will take muscle and fat from my friend's stomach and create a size B on her chest. The irony is this is much harder on me then when I went through surgery myself. As the ever cheerful staff came in the room to introduce themselves I felt myself going into shock. Endless young fresh faces in sensible shoes making their way through medical school. This is something you never imagine when you are young. What it will feel like to submit to a surgery that permanantely alters your landscape. How it feels to realize you do all the yoga and quit drinking and smoking and you still may get terribly sick. How suddenly I am not sure if I could work in this field, remaining cheerful helping someone get ready for the most horrible thing to happen to them. I can't explain the fear I have of the future, for myself, for my friend. The heartbreak of how we ended here. Being tended to by ambitious smart children.If a few hours it will be over. And the long recovery will begin. This is a moment when I wish for a chemical vacation. A shot of valium, a morpheine pump because I don't want to feel how I feel right now but I don't have an escape.
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