Tender

OK, so I’m breast-obsessed these days. If my body was a school class, my breasts have stopped being the pretty twins who sit at the front of the room, doing whatever they’re told. They’ve become the kids at the back who you can’t take your eyes off for a second because if you do they’ll be setting fire to someone’s hair or swallowing the key to the filing cabinet.

I run my fingers over the scar tissue when I’m anxious. I check for lumps in the shower. I notice every detail, every pore and pucker. Choosing a bra is a crucial part of the morning, and all of my bras are pretty these days – my post-operative grandma-bras and weight-gain scaffolding having been thrown away in a recent purge.

Mostly, my breasts let me get on with it. They like the pretty bras and they ignore the continual assessments because they know they’re fine.

But for the last few days, they’ve objected to touch. They’re sore and tender and really making themselves known: if they could, they’d be letting out a low keening moan.

I have no idea what this is about. There’s no sign of this as a side-effect on Tamoxifen information, it’s not in line with my occasional-period-even-though-I’m-having-a-menopause symptoms. Breast tenderness is an early menopausal sign, so I’m wondering whether my body is having an Actual Menopause to accompany the drug-induced medical menopause. If so, we’ll be having words, because I could seriously do without the overlap. But I don’t know. It seems odd.

It’s enough to make me want to go and have a lie-down.

Not on my front, though.