Free Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas

able to get wet. Since my hair would be greasy I brought jewelry to make up for it. I decide to wear my freshwater-pearl chandelier earrings because the white looks nice with the white cotton robe. And it matches my bandage.
    As if on cue, three dozen perfect, creamy white roses arrive in my room. “Thinking of you, Barbara Walters.”
    My mom, dad, and brothers do not leave my bed. My mother-in-law Marie, my father-in-law Gerald, my sister-in-law Leslie, my Uncle Marty, Uncle Steve, Aunt Marilyn, Aunt Pamela, Uncle Bernard, Aunt Nancy are all there. My friend Suzanne makes sure that I have fresh doughnuts every morning. My friends sit on my bed until the staff tells them they have to leave because visiting hours are over. They answer my phone and laugh: “Geralyn Lucas’s room, how can we help you?”
    But when my gynecologist—the one I first showed my lump to—comes to visit me, her visit reminds me of the sadness of where my life left off.
    “Geralyn, I am so sorry this happened. Please don’t get pregnant. It will be too dangerous for you now.”
    I need to see Dr. B’s face to feel some hope. He told me that I will get my life back, that it will be a hard year, but then things will return to normal. Dr. B is supposed to come see me today and I need to look my best for him. He will probably feel guilty to see me in so much pain, knowing he has cut off my breast. But I feel a strange closeness with him, since he has cut me open and stitched me back together. I can’t reach to brush my hair—it would pull the stitches too much. I can still tilt my face down to apply my lipstick. But I can’t reach my arm up to curl my middle finger and make the perfect lipstick arch between my lips. It would hurt my drain stitching too much.
    When Dr. B arrives he immediately clears the room and sits down softly on the corner of my bed. He must know after performing so many surgeries how much a little bed pressure can hurt a wound.
    “Geri, wow you look like you’re feeling well.”
    It is quiet and the only noise is the beeping of my pulse monitor. It starts to quicken because I know what he is about to say.
    “Have you looked yet?”
    “I can’t.”
    He walks to the door and locks it. He walks over to the bed and pushes the white waffle bathrobe to the side and opens my blue surgical gown and his face drops a little because he sees what I feel: fresh blood seeping though the gauze.
    “Don’t move—you need to have this dressing changed and we’re going to take a look.”
    I turn away and close my eyes again. I have been closing my eyes every time a nurse, a doctor has changed the dressing.
    Dr. B is wiping off my wound, asking if it hurts, telling me that he is almost ready for me to open my eyes. I remember all the times I opened my eyes when I was little, anticipating surprises—wonderful presents. I try to imagine what I will look like and Dr. B answered my question:
    “Geri, open your eyes. You look beautiful. It’s okay.”
    Before I open my eyes I remember the bizarre photo album in the office of my plastic surgeon. Dr. P was the last doctor I went to see before I decided that I could have my mastectomy. Her photo album convinced me that I could do it. I had needed to see what it was going to look like.
    She is an expert in breast reconstruction after a mastectomy. She took out a photo album unlike any photo album I had ever seen: disembodied torsos of reconstructed breasts. Really, they looked like mug shots of breasts—bad lighting and the breasts looked so serious, like they knew they were posing for a reconstruction photo album. They looked better than I thought reconstructed breasts might look, I guess, but just so much blankness where the nipples should have been. And that was when I realized that having a mastectomy meant having my nipple removed as well as my breast. No one had told me that part.
    A breast without a nipple? It just wasn’t right. Like a pizza without pepperoni, a cake without icing,