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Time, along with demonstrations of love, understanding and affection by your partner and family should help you work through feelings about your changed body image. In addition, some find that physical activities-sports, dancing classes, exercise, or judo-improve their sense of being in touch with their bodies.
A ballet teacher who has had a mastectomy is teaching other women the feeling of grace and balance that comes from dance.
"After I took up yoga," another woman exclaimed with some surprise, "I achieved a sense of wholeness about my body -- even without one breast -- that I had never had before."
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People who take on a challenging activity that moves them beyond a disability -- skiing for amputees for example -- find it can provide a whole new sense of self worth.
"Can you believe, I have more pride in this ragged body than I did when it was all there?" asked a tennis ace, who took up the game after his colostomy.
Poetry, music, painting, furniture building, sewing and reading provide creative growth of which you can be equally proud. If anything needs strengthening it is our personal self-image. Acquiring new interests and talents can help develop that strength.
Restoration
Reconstructive surgery or cosmetic and functional prostheses (artificial devices) help some people with cancer overcome both physical disabilities and emotional distress from disfiguring surgery.
A small but growing body of skilled craftsmen build prostheses for people who have had radical oral and facial surgery. These lifelike pieces enable people to go out in public again with some degree of emotional comfort.
For some, they are the difference between silence and the ability to speak. For others, they put eating solid food back into the realm of possibility.
Women who have had a mastectomy can wear a breast form (prosthesis) or have breast reconstruction. Most insurance companies cover restorative or cosmetic surgery and various prosthetic devices as a necessary part of the rehabilitation process.
This is good news, for it is further recognition that cancer patients are entitled to as close to normal a life as possible. No longer are they asked to be grateful and satisfied just to be alive.
Reprinted with permission.
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