Prosthetic Nipples

Barbie was my favorite doll when I was growing up, but I never would have guessed that one day she and I would have the same torso. 

After a mastectomy there are options to look like a “Real” woman but they all involve some form of added pain…reconstructive nipple surgery, nipple tattooing, etc., and I am done being poked and stabbed for now. 

Plus, the women I have spoken with who had these done are finding after a year the tattoos fade and need to be touched up and after several years the reconstructed nipple collapses. 

But there is another option and it arrived on my doorstep…PROSTHETIC NIPPLES. 

Originally, I borrowed a set of pink-perfect prosthetic nipples from my breast surgeon, Dr. Christopher Low, for my mastectomy photo series but after a year with no nipples I caved and ordered my very own shiny new nipples. 

Pink-Perfect.com makes a variety of colors and styles to best fit your skin tone and sassiness, as well as custom nipples if you need to match your existing single nipple. 

I am a BOLD CORAL gal. Watch me unbox and try them on in this new brand new YouTube Video. 

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Who would have thought that after spending our lives hiding our nipples, one day we would be glueing nipple shaped pasties on? You always want what you can't have. 

If you had a mastectomy, what did you do about the nipples? Comment below!

Good NEWS CBS 12

Good News... CBS 12 News' Michelle Wright interviewed me for their Extraordinary People segment.

I Deserved Cancer.

Cancer brings up emotions that defy logic. They can’t be defended or dissuaded, they have to be felt and slowly evolve. I BLAMED myself for my cancer. Clearly, I wasn’t a GOOD ENOUGH person to NOT get cancer. I must have caused it, maybe even DESERVED it. 

Photo by DJ Watts

The year before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my mother died of ovarian cancer. I didn’t feel I had done enough, spent enough time with her, prepared enough food for her, loved her hard enough. I was ANGERY that she had cancer and that she died of it. I wasn’t angry at Cancer, I was angry at HER for letting cancer happen.  

At age 6, so proud to be matching my mama. 

Then I was diagnosed with cancer and it felt like Karma for all of these unspoken and unspeakable feelings. My anger, blame, and guilt towards my mother and especially towards myself- were eating me alive. 

So I let cancer HEAL me. Cancer became penance. Penance for what I failed to do, for my feelings, for my thoughts. Cancer gave me insight into my mother’s pain. It did not break us apart but instead it brought us together, even after her death. 

The place where my mothers ashes were scattered. 

Chemo became my temple and I became a monk. It allowed me the chance to dig deep with in and be stripped. Cancer taught me a priceless lesson that my mother tried desperately to teach me during her life- External Beauty holds no TRUE value. I didn’t understand why she pushed so hard against my desire to be PRETTY until I watched every copper strand of hair, both perky breasts, my endless lashes, and boundless energy abandon me in a blink of an eye. I couldn’t fully grasp how VALUABLE I was beyond my physical body until it was stripped down to it’s essence. 

“[I] put value in an asset with diminishing returns, and [Cancer] made sure all of it burned”.

©Andres Hernandez 2015 Shot in the middle of chemo. 

We don’t deserve “bad” or “good” things in life. Life is neutral. Events Happen. People get sick. People Die. Not because they were good or bad or DESERVED it, but because that is LIFE. We can’t control the things that happen but by accepting events as they are, we can swim across them with greater ease because we are not being dragged under by their weight. 

We are all Divine because we come from the DIVINE, We are all Extraordinary because we come from the EXTRAORDINARY, we are all Love because we all come from LOVE. We lack for nothing because everything we need was given to us the moment we divided from that first cell.

Just because my body was broken it didn’t make ME a broken person. I didn't deserve cancer and I don't deserve health because the word "DESERVE", just like external beauty, holds no true value. 

Cancer gave me more than it took and healed me in places I could never reach. It helped me heal my relationship with my mother, to forgive her and to finally FORGIVE myself. 

Did Cancer give you a gift you never expected? What was it? Comment below. 

If you would like to help us make the docudramedy based on my one woman show, "I Don't Have Cancer", please donate to our Go Fund Me. 

Controversial Cancer Poem

CANCER: 

I have wars waged upon me and walks staged against me. 

You try to blame me and shame me for doing my job,

But maybe you should look at why I arrived.

You accuse genetics or food for giving you this curse,

But it is not what you put in your mouth

but what didn’t come out that was worse.

You invited me in, asked me to stay,

By burying your feelings and the things you wanted to say. 

The hate that you ate was your true poison.

And your only way out it to learn to be open.

I have no malice or motive, a villain I am not.

If you look deep within, you will realize this is a gift I have brought.

Life is too short and you are doing it all wrong.

The fastest way to fix it is for me to come along.

I am a teacher and I give you a present more precious than life, 

The reminder that you have caused your very own strife.

I do not break families apart but I bring them together.

I show you that the weak are strong

And to be vulnerable is better.

All that glitters is not gold

Your youth, hair, and breast will all get old.

You have put value in an asset with diminishing returns, 

And I will make sure that all of it burns.

Out of the ashes true beauty will grow,

And LOVE is the only word you will need to know.

I pray one day you will truly forgive,

Because that is the moment you will begin to live.

I composed this poem from Cancer's point of view for my one woman show, I Don't Have Cancer, during chemo treatments for breast cancer. 

Cancer Costumes...Halloween FUN

Halloween is for kids and cancer patients! There is joy that overflows from a child when asked, “What do you want to be for Halloween”. With it’s endless possibilities to express who they want to become, who they idolize. As a cancer patient the opportunity returns. 

It is a time to embrace the changes, the baldness, the scars. A time to laugh at the hand you have been dealt.

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It is a day off from taking CANCER seriously. 

It is a time to take charge of YOUR identity, even if it is just for a day. 

Halloween 2014 -a week after my double mastectomy- there was no party but there was an appointment to remove my final drain bag. Circumstance made my costume…I was the Bride of Frankenstein, cut up and put back together. My amazing husband dressed as Dr. Frankenstein to support my crazy. 

It brought joy to what could have been an otherwise traumatizing situation. I had not seen my bare chest until that appointment and when I did my first thought was “What a FUCKING badass”. It set the tone for my journey to follow. 

Find out what I dressed up as this year (Spoiler: IT IS EPIC) on Instagram @AnielaMcG. 

Did you dress up during your treatment? Share what you were. Comment below.