Geralyn Lucas - Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy

Geralyn Lucas

The FCC is launching an investigation into the nipple.

Tom Preston, president of MTV, on Janet Jacksons breast baring performance at the Superbowl

I moved to the United States after seeing Baywatch on television.

Sarabjeet Multani, a fast-driving, Punjabi, New York City cabbie , The New York Times, July 17, 2003

Im often taken aback by the phenomenon its becomeI just dont believe it sometimes.

Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild. His teams of cameramen ask young womenin return for a Girls Gone Wild tank topto sign a release form and reveal their naked breasts.

Silly little planet. I could rule the world with these mammary things.

Lara Flynn Boyle as Serleena in Men in Black 2, upon landing on earth and causing chaos in her black push-up bra

People need to realize that breasts are for more than selling beer.

Tristyn Underwood, nursing her twenty-eight-month-old son, Gabriel, at a nurse-in at a Utah Burger King to protest a woman being asked to nurse her baby in the bathroom instead of the playroom

The chain acknowledges that many consider Hooters a slang term for a portion of the female anatomy. The chain enjoys and benefits from this debate.

From the official Hooters restaurant Web site

Note to Readers

Conversations quoted in this book have been reconstructed from memory.

While Geralyn is deeply grateful to all of her doctors for their amazing dedication, skill, and compassion; she has omitted their names out of respect for the doctor/patient relationship.

Dedication

For Moni

By Christine Thomas

Gliding down the mountain

Soaring through the air

The snow it falls so steady

Its sprinkled in her hair

A young and vibrant woman

Slowly lost her strength

It seemed to me impossible

It seems so to this day

To have such grace and beauty

Inside as well as out

Was such an inspiration

And now I am without

This poem was written for Monica Steward, a beautiful young woman who had so much life left in her when she died of breast cancer. She was only twenty-eight years old.

I dedicate this book to all the women whose lives were stolen, and to all the families who lost them. There was so much more life left in all of them. I have cried for Stacey, for Laurel, for Amy, for Becky, for Julie, for Anne, for Erin, and for Monica.

I am convinced that it is not about beating breast cancer. It is not about positive attitude, eating the right food, exercise, whatever. They were all fighters, and if anyone couldve beaten cancer, these women could have. They were totally kick-ass.

I dont know why I lived and others died. That is the worst part for me. I have survivors guilt. But, I know their spirits, and the love for them lives on.

I also dedicate this book to the amazing doctors who put my boob and my life back together again, somehow: Thank you for the work you do every day. Thank you for your devotion to taking care of women and their families.

And, this dedication is also to all the survivors who have supported me. I am humbled by your courage, your strength, and generosity. Thank you Meredith, Rena, and Jane for all of your guidance and for being my touchstones. I am in awe of all the other one boobed girls, and no boobed girls, I have met who still know how to work ityou showed me a way and you know who you are! You have proven to me that breast cancer survivors are some of the smartest and foxiest women I know. It must be all of that inner cleavage shining through! You know how to strip. You go girls!

XO Geralyn

The Lipstick Manifesto:

Have Courage, Wear Lipstick

LipstickI never used to wear it. I used to be strictly a gloss girl: Bonne Bell. Lipstick was reserved for movie stars, rocker chicks, magazine-ad models, and a certain type of woman that I knew I was not. It felt obvious and too bold and shouted look at me! I didnt have the self-confidence and couldnt pull it off.

I started slowly, with tinted gloss. When I put my finger in the round jar, it stained my fingertip slightly and it felt incriminating. It was in chemistry class in high school. I thought no one would notice there because of all the beakers, chemicals, and the potential for explosions. I checked my lips twice in the reflective paper towel holder when I washed my hands, and both times I was a little startled by how much my lips stood out. That kind of made me smirk. I think my teacher, Mr. Bradley, might have noticed this change because he looked at me funnyeither that or he was scared I was going to ignite my notebook.

The tinted gloss sustained me until college, when I received some red lipstick as a free gift with a purchase. It was something I never would have bought, because it was too sexy for me.

I got a tissue ready just in case the lipstick looked ridiculous, closed my door, and locked it. I remembered I had watched in awe when other women confidently applied their lipstick in bathroom mirrors. Lips slightly puckered, every single stroke seemed to say, I deserve this. As I glided it across my lips my hand shook a little and I had to wipe it off and start again. Now I had a red smudge around my lips and I was worried my lipstick experiment might backfire and that I would look like a little girl playing dress-upor Ronald McDonald.

When I looked in the mirror I was confused. I definitely didnt look like Marilyn Monroe, but there was something about myself I didnt recognize. Some sort of confidence was on my lips staring back at me, daring me to live up to this fierce red lipstick I had just applied.

Something changed when I put on that lipstick that day. It was like a magic wand when I swiped the waxes, oils, pigments, and emollients across my lips for the first time. But then I panicked and worried. Could I live up to my lipstick? Could I own this new power?

Now, applying lipstick is a habit, like brushing my teeth. I even amped it up. I prefer bright red. It has become my trademark. When women compliment my lipstick they almost always say, Oh, I could never wear red lipstick, but it looks so good on you.

I always think to myself: You can wear lipstick... youve never tried.

And maybe applying red lipstick is a simple act of courageto imagine yourself as someone or something you never thought you could be, and somehow, in a carefully applied swipe of beeswax, to become her.

Maybe wearing lipstick is the beginning of a revolution inside your head?

Stripping

I am the only woman in the room with my shirt on at the VIP Strip Club (except for the coat-check girl and she definitely doesnt count). So I am trying to blend in but it is not working. A preppy guy has already come over and asked if I would spank him. One of the bouncers heard this and moved me over to a more private corner of the club. I appreciate this gesture because I have come here to face the biggest decision of my life, and the disco music was just too loud in the front to really concentrate.

I have never been in a strip club before, and they would not allow me in without a man. It was more humiliating than being carded. So I waited for the next guy to show up and asked if he would be my escort. At first I was embarrassed, but then I got over it because I need to be here.

I have come to this mammary Mecca to decide if I can decide to have a mastectomy to deal with the cancer they found in my right breast ten days ago. This was one part of the diagnosis that no one would discuss with me: what it means to have one boob in a boob-obsessed universe. It seems taboo to actually admit this, or to factor it into my decision about whether I should have a mastectomy. But for me, it is now, strangely, the deciding factor. The argument for having the mastectomy and removing my breast seems pretty obviousit would be so much saferuntil I start thinking about how I will exist as a twenty-seven-year-old woman with one breast. I am not a stripper, but I have always taken for granted that I have two boobs.