Issue Number 1002 | Taking Inventory | Advocate.com Taking Inventory  | First Person | Advocate.com

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Taking Inventory

A weekly breast cancer support group teaches one lesbian how to value what she has by embracing what she's lost.
From The Advocate  February 26, 2008
Taking Inventory

The eight of us sitting around the large round table in the restaurant are as boisterous as any group of women can be. But the unique roll call we perform before even looking at the menu sets us apart.

“OK, OK, how many breasts do we have here tonight?” one of us invariably asks with a chuckle. “One, zero, zero, two, one, one and three quarters, two, zero,” we obediently shout out in turn. “Seven and three quarters real breasts among the eight of us,” I declare, never in my wildest dreams having suspected that I would use my math skills for this computation.

“How many ovaries?” another asks. It turns out: fewer than last month. Those of us with estrogen-positive breast cancer or one of the breast cancer genes have opted to have our ovaries removed to hopefully increase our chances of survival.

Welcome to the group none of us wanted to join yet are glad we found -- lesbians with cancer, which meets at the local LGBT community center on Thursday evenings.

Some issues we grapple with are specific to women who partner with women. Whether to come out to doctors and medical staff, or instances of homophobia related to our disease, for example. When I took sick leave to recover from surgery to reconstruct both breasts, a supervisor said to his secretary, “Why is she having the surgery? She’s a lesbian. It’s not like she needs to use them or anything, not like a real woman would.”

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Forsten is a writer and the cofacilitator of a lesbian cancer support group in New York City. Photo by Alberto Vargas.

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