Last weekend I was at a board meeting for my local RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter, and afterward, one of the women asked if I was excited about my upcoming surgery (the final surgery in the mastectomy/reconstruction process). Another friend chimed in and said, “yeah, you’ll have bionic boobs afterward, what fun!”

The truth is, I have the bionic boobs now. This Thursday I’ll be trading them in for real boobs. Well, as close to real as you can get when you actually have no real boobs left. And I will gladly say goodbye to the bionic ones. They are not all they’re cracked up to be.

In terms of the excitement part of the question, I guess I am pretty excited about it. At least, as excited as I can be considering I haven’t felt real excitement about anything since my whole journey began last April. And why is that?

It’s because someone stole my Mojo.

Seriously, now that I think about it, I’m convinced that someone has been sneaking into my room at night and syphoning it off, little by little.

And who might that someone be? Well, he’d have to be small enough so that my dogs wouldn’t see him, Evil enough to actually steal someone’s Mojo, and clever enough to take just enough each time that I wouldn’t miss it until sometime down the road.

And then, when I thought about this I knew, without a doubt, who it was:

But seriously. I keep telling myself that I was lucky. That my stage .5 breast cancer diagnosis could have been so much worse. That I didn’t have to have chemo or radiation or both. And it’s true. All of it is true. But it’s also true that having a bilateral mastectomy is a major life event for any woman, regardless of the circumstances. That it takes its toll on you physically, mentally and emotionally. And there is no getting around it. It zaps you of your Mojo. And I’m tired of trying to convince myself otherwise.

I’ve been crankier than normal for some time now. Have reacted to situations in ways I never would normally. Have felt devoid of the joy I used to feel in my everyday life. And until my Mojo returns—and I know it will—I’m going to stop expecting so much from myself. Stop pretending that I’m fine when I’m not. Allow myself to say that what happened to me sucks because it does. It really sucks.

What about you? What struggles have worn you down, and how did you pick yourself back up and move back into the land of the living?

Repost from January 21, 2014