Day +92 Inscribed Me #100DaysDIEP

Project Reconstructed by Erez Sabag

After my skin-sparing mastectomy last year I didn’t pay the scar much mind. I’d massage oil over my breast as prep for and recovery from radiotherapy, but it was a glancing touch and I never felt into the scar. Since my DIEP flap reconstruction my attitude to my scars has changed. Partly because my abdominal scar is too extensive to ignore and I’ve been told I need to firmly massage it to help with healing. But also because I’ve seen so much scar-positivity on Instagram since starting to share my post-recon story (from @behindthescars_ @truecancerbodies and recently @pinkhopeaus). I don’t think of them as battle scars (I’ve never been at war with my body or let a surgeon attack it), but as life scars; the necessary collateral damage from trying to save my life and rebuild me as I want to be. I’m not ashamed of them. I’m proud of what they represent: my refusal to be broken by breast cancer yet accepting of the cracks that it has opened up in and on me. It made me think of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold and therefore honouring and recognising the beauty in the ‘imperfect’ and accepting change. As is often the case, it wasn’t an original thought, and it was heartening to see this beautiful images from #ProjectReconstructed via DiepCFoundation, a US-based not-for-profit that promotes #shareddecisionmaking for post-mastectomy reconstruction. 📷 with kind permission of photographer Erez Sabag; creative team @formcollabortive; and @jonathanbankmd . Thanks also to Terri from DiepCFoundation.