I need to bitch a minute...

I know I did this voluntarily.  And I knew the risks and thought long and hard about what my new life would be like.  And its what I pictured.  But all of that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to bitch about it once in a while.

While I did have a mastectomy voluntarily, I did NOT volunteer to have the breast cancer gene.  I did not volunteer to have an 87% chance of breast cancer.  I did not volunteer to have internal ultrasound scans of my ovaries every six months until the end of eternity.  I did not volunteer to watch my mother battle breast cancer way too young, in her 30s and again in her 40s.  What I volunteered for, was to reduce my cancer risk from 87% to 1%.  I volunteered to give up my vanity and have balloons placed in my chest.  It was not a hard decision, but it was not one I took lightly.  I knew what it would be like.  But that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to be upset every once in a while.

There have only been a couple of times since May where I have thought that maybe I made a mistake.  But then my children run in from another room to tell me something, and I remember that this was the best possible thing I could do for them.  I don't want my children to watch my hair fall out, or watch me throw up several times a day.  I don't want them to worry that I might die.  I don't want to miss their weddings, proms, first dates, babies.  I had excellent reasons for doing what I did.  I did the right thing.  And even when I think I could have made the wrong decision, I quickly remember that it was the right one.

So please, when I complain about a tiny thing that annoys me, like the fact that my chest is always cold, or that I can't do plank, or that I can't scrub dried food off the kitchen counter because I don't have the muscle strength, or that I can't wear certain tops because my scars show, just let me complain.  I don't do it often.  But I don't need to be reminded that I did this "voluntarily".  As if that takes away my right to be able to be irritated at a side effect on occasion.  Because it doesn't.