The other side of the curtain

Sometimes, all it takes is a fleeting moment to shift your perspective on life.

Yesterday was one of those moments. I met a young woman in clinic, not too different in age from myself, for a quick post-operative review. She had recently undergone surgery to remove both breasts—one for cancer, the other to reduce her risk of developing it in the future. A mother of two young children, she had chosen the most straightforward, least complicated option: to go flat.

This was the first time her dressings were being removed. As she looked at her chest, now flat, she couldn’t hold back her tears. Through her sobs, she asked her husband to step to the other side of the curtain—she didn’t want him to see her like that.

As a surgeon, would I have recommended something different? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

But what stood before me wasn’t just a patient. She was a mother, fiercely determined to do whatever it took to stay alive for her children. She kept saying, “My children don’t care if I have breasts or not.”

And on the other side of the curtain, I saw a man—her husband—with tears in his eyes, whispering back, “I don’t care either. Just live.”

Sometimes, we need to pause and ask ourselves: Who is standing on the other side of the curtain for us?

And maybe, just maybe, we need to choose to live—really live—not just for ourselves, but for them too. 
Before it’s too late.