“Are you upset about losing your breast?” I asked Mary, my grandmother, while my grandfather brought the car around. This was June 2000, and she had accepted the news from the doctor calmly, with one hand in mine, the other in my grandfather’s. A mastectomy was called for; she had declined reconstructive plastic surgery, dismissing it out of hand. “You know you can always change your mind and get the plastic surgery later,” I continued. She laughed. “I don’t care about that, honey,” she said. “I just hope the cancer hasn’t spread.” And that was that. We set a date for the surgery and went home.
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