The female body.
There’s no real way to describe the amazingness that carries hormones, babies, and egos, as well as two beauties that set us apart from the men: breasts.
Whether you want to call them “boobies,” “tig ol’ bitties,” or “lady lumps,” they are nearly as close to us girls as two family members as they hang on our chest our whole lives.
So what do most of us do if something was to invade or attack our family? We fight.
To all of the ladies out there, some of you know through experience or just research that breast cancer is no joke.
Angelina Jolie took matters into her own hands when she found out she had a 87 percent risk of getting the disease, so she had a double mastectomy in order to remove both of her breasts. Some might call it an extreme measure, and others might say it was the best decision she could have made.
I have watched friends lose family members to the dark side of breast cancer, and the question comes in: should they have sacrificed their breasts to save their life? This can’t be the only fool-proof solution to an illness that affects about 1 in 3 women all over the world. It just can’t be!
Last year, I personally dealt with the scary side that can come from getting your “boobies” checked out. When my doctor uttered the words “there’s a lump” while feeling on my left breast, it would be almost accurate to say that my life flashed before my eyes. All I could think was, “I’m only 22 years old, in college, and these things are still growing. How can I have a lump ALREADY?”
Well, fortunately, my unusual lump turned out to be non-threatening, but the process of getting a full breast biopsy really was an eye-opener. As the medical knife came close to my side, I realized just how traumatic it would be to lose my own “girls,” as I like to call them. These are my babies. My saviors. The two troopers who have been with me through everything during the course of my body’s life.
Angelina was certainly brave, inspirational, and even encouraging for all of us women to consider the procedure to get our breasts removed. But am I the only one who sees how backwards it is for us women to have to sacrifice all our lives to prevent cancer, and then have to give up our “tatas” if we do get it?
While the surgery is ridiculously priced as the only choice that completely wipes out the chances of getting breast cancer, it’s also horrible to have to sacrifice one of our most feminine traits.
As women, our breasts shouldn’t have to be taken from us in order to survive one of the hardest medical fights of today’s society. There has got to be a better, and still as effective, solution to this breast-removing madness. Sure, there’s radiation and other painful treatments with hundreds of side effects, but they don’t always wipe it from your system to the point that it can’t return.
I would like to live in a day where anyone can proudly and easily live through getting cancer, and still be able to say, “I think I’ll keep my breasts, thank you.”
For now, all we can do is take the steps to prevent and hope for a more reasonable solution.
Remember ladies, keep that zinc out of your deodorant!
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