18. I Touch Myself - The Divinyls 1990
I close my eyes and
see you before me
Think I would die if you were to ignore me
A fool could see just how much I adore you
I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you
In late 2018 I was diagnosed with fibroids, a condition that
I was predisposed to because I hadn’t had kids. After more than ten years of my
partner and I not just practising baby making, but actually attempting to make a
few, the fibroids ironically led to me getting a hysterectomy.
Less than a year later I was
diagnosed with breast cancer. While waiting for a mastectomy - or as I like to
refer to it, a Medicare funded boob job – I wondered, if they took my uterus
and took my boobs, would I have to start ticking the ‘other’ option rather than
the ‘female’ option on Australia’s extremely accommodating government forms?
Many, many, years before stumbling
along the, unfortunately, all too well-worn breast cancer path, I was lucky enough
to see one of my all-time favourite bands, The Divinyls, live at the Canberra
Theatre not long after they’d released ‘I Touch Myself’ as a single. While ‘I
Touch Myself’ refers to masturbation, as The Divinyls vocalist, the amazing Chrissy
Amphlett, was fighting a loosing battle with breast cancer, she gave an
interview during which she commented that she wished the song would be interpreted
as women should touch themselves to check for breast lumps.
When I received the diagnosis I went
straight into boob preservation mode – no mastectomy for me thank you very
much. However, saving my boob wasn’t to be. Then I was annoyed that my natural
boob was going to be made smaller to match the smaller fake one.
To me, losing a boob and then fiddling
around with the size and shape of the other one was really going to impact on my
identity as ‘Oh my God! A woman!’. The super lovely Breast Care Nurse – I
found the name Breast Care Nurse amusing when they were taking one of my breasts
away and tossing it in an incinerator – told me that I had a different approach
to most women, who apparently opt for a quick mastectomy, even a double
mastectomy when cancer was only found in one breast, rather than risk the
cancer coming back and having to go through it all again.
Waiting for the many medical appointments that
comes with a cancer diagnosis provided an opportunity to read the Australian
Cancer Council’s pamphlet Living Well After Cancer. This pamphlet stated
that ‘Some women find menopause difficult because they feel it has taken away
part of their identity as a woman’ but loosing my uterus a year earlier and then
a boob, impacted my identity more than the medication induced menopause. The daily
hormone therapy I was put on to fight off cancer caused a premature menopause,
so maybe I had it easier than most women, but as I’d been enjoying a post
period life for the almost twelve months since having a hysterectomy, shutting
down my ovaries to prevent further cancer wasn’t a big deal.
As an aside, why is the word ‘men’
in the exclusively female condition of menopause?
Another observation from this whole
process is that while breast cancer doesn’t stop for the Christmas break, surgeons
and oncologists do. This slowed down the whole process of diagnosis, referral,
further testing, et cetera, et cetera, but provided me with the opportunity to
mess with friends and family as I advised them of my situation. When I told
them I was having a boob removed, most of them would ask ‘Which one?’. I’d tell
them that they’d have to guess which boob was real and which was fake.
No uterus and only one real boob,
but at least I still have my vagina, vulva, clitoris and cervix.
No real point to that last
sentence. I just wanted to use the words vagina, vulva and clitoris in neither
a clinical nor smutty context.
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