TWENTY-ONE

January 2006

On New Year’s Eve I had dinner with Rosemary at a Vietnamese restaurant on the Upper West Side, after which I walked her to the annual Alcoholics Anonymous New Year’s Dance. We lingered outside for a while as she tried to persuade me to come in, but I refused. She ran into the strobe-lit church to find her boyfriend, Herb, at around eleven p.m., while I headed downtown toward Harriette’s apartment on Fifty-seventh Street. I walked along Central Park South and as I neared Sixth Avenue, there were police barriers and masses of people. My street was blocked off. I fought through the crowd, trying to explain to the bull-headed officers that I lived on that street. After forty minutes, I finally dissolved into tears. I was now thirty-six, body under construction, alone on New Year’s Eve, and stuck in a throng of intoxicated, shouting people wearing gold cardboard crowns and blowing noisemakers. “I should have stayed with the sober drunks,” I thought. A young cop saw me crying and made his way over. “Are you all right, miss?” he said. His kindness made me blubber all the more. I pointed to the awning of my building, uttered that I lived there. He escorted me across the street. I rang in the New Year in the elevator.

 

ON JANUARY 8, Danielle and Bruce were getting married. Danielle was three months pregnant and glowing. I was thrilled for her and happy to welcome Bruce as a brother-in-law. That said, the event was challenging for me.

My younger sister was getting married for the second time. She had never been particularly passionate about having children (as I was), yet she was now happily pregnant. I was the old-maid older sister, single and dateless, once again, at a pivotal family occasion. But what felt most overwhelming to me was the venue and tenor of the event.

The wedding was to be at Mar-a-Lago, the 110,000-square-foot estate in Palm Beach that had been built in the 1920s by Marjorie Merriweather Post and is currently owned by Donald Trump. The Spanish/Venetian/Portuguese-style manor sits on twenty acres of perfectly landscaped lawns nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth; mar a lago means “sea to lake” in Latin. Three boatloads of Dorian stone had been brought over from Genoa, Italy, to construct the exterior walls and arches. The estate has 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces, and 3 bomb shelters. In addition to the Gold and White ballroom, Trump built a new, gargantuan 20,000-square-foot Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom in Louis XIV style, with gold and crystal finish.

This over-the-top setting was not my style. It was to be a society wedding—Bruce’s family was friends with many prominent, wealthy Jewish couples who summered in the Hamptons and wintered in Palm Beach. When I was fifteen, I’d announced to my parents that none of their friends would be invited to my wedding. Back then, I imagined getting married in a wheat field with all my artistic friends participating—singing songs or reading poems. At thirty-six, I thought that if I ever married, I’d probably elope. To this Danielle replied, “Your husband and his parents might have feelings on the matter. We’re doing it for the family.”

Another thing Danielle and Bruce did in honor of family was to request that guests donate to the Stephanie Queller Fund at the Lynn Cohen Foundation for Ovarian Cancer Research in lieu of wedding gifts.

Our mother would have been in hog heaven presiding over this lavish wedding (especially with Bruce as her son-in-law!), but she was not here, so I was the default hostess. Celebrating Dani and Bruce was the easy part. Putting on my game face and making charming conversation with the guests required every ounce of my energy. At Dani’s first wedding, ten years earlier, all the ladies had sympathetically patted me on the back and said, “Your turn will come …. How old are you?” Back then I’d been twenty-six and had a boyfriend on my arm. Now it was pure farce. I was not just the older, single sister. Because I’d written the New York Times article, everyone present knew I was the mastectomy girl. As I made my way through the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom during the reception, the fancy Jewish ladies peered at me as if I’d just returned from Auschwitz. No one knew quite what to say to me. At least my new body really did suit me; the smaller breast size was flattering and clothes finally fit well. Many ladies exclaimed with surprise, “You’re the sister? But you look so good!” Others clucked sympathetically. “Someday you’ll have a fairytale wedding just like this one. Someday you’ll find your Bruce.”

By the end of the weekend I felt like a deflated balloon.

LATE IN THE MONTH, Donna and I made a date to go to a BRCA support group Dr. Smith had put together at the NYU Cancer Center. Before entering the room, we embraced and checked out each other’s new bodies. Just as we’d planned, we had switched breasts—she was now a full C-cup and I was a modest B. Donna still had her expanders in; her exchange surgery was scheduled for the following week. My final surgery was two weeks away.

There were about a dozen women assembled in a conference room, most of them around our age. There was one genetic counselor presiding. Several of the women had just learned their BRCA status and were trying to figure out what to do. Several others had known their status for a while and had already undergone oophorectomy but were grappling over breast surgery. Donna and I were the only women present to have prophylactically removed our breasts. One young woman, age twenty-five, had breast cancer. She’d had a double mastectomy and was about to start chemo.

We went around the room. Each person recited her medical history and story. Afterward, we asked one another questions. I listened closely as women talked about having had their ovaries removed. There was debate about whether it was best to remove the uterus in addition to the ovaries. This alleviates the possibility of uterine cancer, but it is controversial because removal of the uterus may disrupt the structure of the pelvic floor. They spoke about early menopause, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness. There was discussion I couldn’t really follow about whether to take hormone replacement therapy drugs. Because I was intent upon having children before removing my ovaries, I’d spent the past year and a half focusing solely on the breast issue. I had all of this to look forward to.

The young woman with breast cancer was astonishing. Her attitude was so positive and cheery, she could have replaced Kelly Ripa as Regis’s cohost. She was doing a breast cancer walk in two weeks; she had all of her surgeries and procedures organized and planned out. Once again, I was humbled. I knew I would not have such energy or grace under those conditions.

Everyone in the room was curious to hear from Donna and me about our preventative mastectomies, why we decided to opt for them, and how our experiences had been. I said the surgeries had been pretty easy, all things considered. I was extremely happy with my new body in clothes. It was too soon to tell how the scars would heal, but I felt normal and natural and whole. I was worried about my personal life, but I felt quite at home with my new breasts. And it was a true pleasure never to have to worry about bras again!

Donna’s contentedness was several notches higher than mine. She felt great. She loved her new breasts. And she still had the expanders in, which meant they were hard as rocks—she could only imagine how happy she would be with the soft silicone implants. She’d had sex with an ex-boyfriend the other day while half-reconstructed, with the expanders and no nipples. It had been great. He thought her new breasts were objectively sexy—the look and the roundness and the form. It hadn’t been an intimate experience with someone who loved her unconditionally—it had been a sexual experience. He was genuinely turned on by her new breasts, which meant so much to her. She’d been afraid that her body would be defective and unsexy. She no longer had those fears.

I was quite envious, listening to Donna speak. I’d not yet had an intimate experience with a man and I still harbored those very fears.

Most important, Donna and I both expressed our relief to no longer have the threat of breast cancer looming.

At the end of the meeting, Donna and I took our shirts off for the room. I had to laugh. I’d bared my breasts for others so many times since this BRCA issue had taken hold of my life (just like Suzy and Anna had). I, who had always been shy about walking around topless in front of boyfriends, was suddenly whipping my shirt off with the casual nonchalance of a pro. Donna and I allowed the women to touch them. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed over how pretty our new, nippleless breasts were.

In the weeks before my final surgery, I remained in a state of low-grade depression. I was ashamed of this—I knew I’d done the right thing by having the operations and wished I felt confident and empowered—but I didn’t. I was filled with sorrow. I was consumed by my nonexistent personal life. All I wanted was a family—a partner and children. I was afraid that those things would pass me by. I was acutely aware of my accelerated biological clock because of the necessity to remove my ovaries at forty.

My best friends kicked into gear. They were going to fix me up on dates the moment I recovered from the final surgery. Gillian was the most forceful yenta and cheerleader. I was touched by her efforts but had no faith that they would amount to anything. I reluctantly agreed to go out on blind dates, with the caveat that she had to inform the guys of my situation in advance. If the breast cancer gene and mastectomy freaked them out, best to know up front. I had no desire to break the news to them over dinner. Gillian agreed and put out feelers.

Danielle slept over the night before my last operation. Dr. Choi had said I should choose the nipple size I wanted, so Dani and I traced paper circles using quarters and a NyQuil bottle cap, cut them out, and held them up to my boobs. Dani designed and selected the right size. She is a great sister.

The next morning, we waited for Dr. Choi in the admitting room changing cubicle. A few weeks earlier, my friend David Zabel, the head writer of ER, had asked me to write a freelance episode and I’d mentioned this to Dr. Choi. I’d asked her if she had any good medical stories to share with me. We’d agreed to go out for drinks when I’d recovered from the final operation so she could tell me her war stories. When Dr. Choi met us in the cubicle, she reported that she’d mentioned my ER episode to Dr. Kutchin and had arranged for the three of us to go out for drinks! We’d orchestrate via e-mail when I was feeling better. Even my plastic surgeon was setting me up on dates ….

I opened my hospital gown and held the paper circles Dani had designed up to my breasts; Dr. Choi agreed they were the right size, and she traced them with Magic Marker. She also marked my hips; I had opted for skin grafting in reconstructing the areolas rather than just tattooing in color on the advice of my sister’s obgyn. As it happened, Danielle’s doctor had undergone a prophylactic mastectomy herself after her own mother died from breast cancer. I had accompanied Danielle to an appointment, and the doctor had showed me her reconstructed breasts, which looked fabulous. She’d done skin grafts and insisted it was the only way to go. It gave the reconstructed nipples texture, made them look uncannily real. After they healed, you could tattoo in color. We were taking the skin from both hips; the scars would be hidden beneath the panty line.

I put on my booties and blue mesh hat, kissed Dani good-bye, and once more walked into the operating room.

I LAY IN BED bandaged like a mummy. I was again swathed across my chest where my newly grafted nipples were stitched and raw. I had long, diagonal stretches of gauze and tape along each hip, and my left forearm was elevated in a soft brace. (Dr. Choi specialized in both breast and hand surgery, so I’d asked her to remove a harmless cyst from my left wrist while I was already sedated in the operating room.) Since I had no feeling in my breasts, I felt no pain from the stitched nipples, but the wounds along my hips and on my wrist hurt.

While I was bedridden and bandaged, phone calls from men started to pour in. My friend Meredith had asked her husband’s aunt, a doctor, to set me up with some eligible young surgeons. Gillian had wrangled two men for me who lived in Los Angeles: both were divorced with young children. One was a screenwriter, one was a sportswriter; both were said to be attractive, though one of them was allegedly quite short.

I listened with detachment to the messages they left. I couldn’t keep track of who was who—I’d call Meredith or Gillian and ask, “Is Andrew the doctor or the screenwriter, and is he the short one ….?” If these guys only could see the woman they were calling. I looked like the sit-com version of a person who’d been in a car wreck, with arms in casts and a leg in traction. My friends had informed these potential suitors that I’d undergone a prophylactic mastectomy; they hadn’t mentioned I’d had the final operation yesterday.

I called back a couple of the guys, made stilted small talk, and said I was “busy” for the next week or so.

Four days after my surgery, I got a call from Mark, the sportswriter.

Mark was forty-three, recently divorced, with a six-year-old daughter. He’d grown up in Manhattan in what he called the “projects for white people” in the West Twenties. He’d gone to Stuyvesant High School (my dad’s alma mater) and then Swarthmore, got his graduate degree at Columbia University’s journalism school, and had been a reporter for twenty years. He’d covered murders, drug dealers, and corruption under the tutelage of Pete Hamill (his “rabbi”) at the New York Post and Daily News in addition to being a sports columnist at both papers for over a decade. In the past few years, he’d become an acclaimed sports biographer.

Mark was an old-school character, cut from the Hemingway/Mailer cloth—a hard-drinking, tough-talking writer who was also a boxer. In that first conversation, my heart melted at the paradox of this intense, stomping-bull alpha male who talked so tenderly about his young daughter. He had joint custody and was Mr. Mom 3.5 days a week. “Every morning at six a.m., my daughter says, ‘Daddy, I’m hungry!’ so I get up and make her French toast. I’m a master at girls’ hair—I blowdry, do braids, barrettes, ribbons. And I can tell you about every princess—Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, whatever.”

Mark was a New Yorker to the core but had been living in Los Angeles for about nine months. His ex-wife had urged him to sell their Brooklyn apartment and move the family out to California. As soon as they got there, she left him. He was furious and tried to take the divorce proceedings back to New York, but soon discovered he would risk losing his daughter, so he had no recourse but to make peace with LA. To say the least, Mark was a fish out of water in Hollywood. He’d hardly left the six-block radius of his house and office since he’d arrived; he had no clue how to pronounce the names of major boulevards like La Cienega and Cahuenga.

Mark and I talked on the phone for over an hour. I was smitten. I’d found him charming and funny and full of heart. I told him about the book proposal I was writing and about my decision to undergo prophylactic surgery. He responded with admiration for my choice and bravery.

The next day, Mark called again and left a message on my machine: “I was thinking about your book, and I have a few ideas ….” I called him back, and he really had been thinking about the book. “Breasts are the only organs in the body that are both maternal and sexual,” he said. “I think there’s a lot to mine out of that.” We talked for over two hours. I still had my apartment in Los Angeles and said I’d be out there in two weeks.

The next day, Mark left another message on my machine. “So, I have some more thoughts about your book ….”

I called him back. “You don’t need to use the book as an excuse to call me, you know,” I said. Again we talked for two hours. And then for two more hours later that night. Mark and I talked on the phone for four hours a day for the next two weeks.

During those weeks, I was floating. I could scarcely eat or sleep. My depression was a faint, distant memory. I was now over the moon. I hadn’t even met this guy, but I was already in love. He’d written a best-selling biography of Joe Namath. I’d gone to the bookstore and bought several copies, but they only had the paperback edition in stock, which did not have an author’s photo. I would talk to Mark on the phone and gaze at the photo of gorgeous Joe Namath, conflating the two of them in my mind.

I canceled dates with the other guys, though I did go out for drinks with Dr. Choi and Dr. Kutchin. They told me wacky medical stories to inspire my freelance episode of ER. We had a good time, but Dr. Kutchin no longer held appeal. My heart was taken.

I arrived at the Burbank airport late one night in March, around eleven p.m. Since Mark and I had never met, we’d decided to go out on a proper date the following evening. But I called him when I landed and we both realized we couldn’t wait another day, so he drove across town to my apartment at midnight and was waiting for me on the steps when my cab pulled up. He was carrying champagne, caviar, and vodka. He was incredibly handsome, over six feet tall, with an athlete’s body to match his tough-guy persona. As it turned out, Mark had Namath’s coloring and beautiful hazel eyes. We had as much chemistry in person as we did over the phone.

From that moment on, every night that Mark did not have his daughter, we spent together. I flew back to New York for a few days to pack up all my things and officially moved back to Los Angeles. I didn’t end up writing the ER episode, because I took a full-time job on a new show instead. My body was still healing, so I mainly wore camisoles when we were in bed. Mark made me feel beautiful, sexy, and whole. He often said he did not mourn the loss of my natural (and large) breasts—he loved the modest size I chose. He was a man who’d always been with gorgeous women and cared about such things—yet he insisted I was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. He loved me all the more for the courage to do what I’d done. “You’re not only beautiful, you’ve got balls,” he would say with admiration. Mark swept in and erased all of my fears.

A few weeks later, I met Mark’s daughter and fell madly in love with her. Mark’s hazel eyes shone out of this dazzling creature—all limbs and long, light brown hair. She was six but had a husky little Demi Moore voice and her daddy’s intensity and humor. She’d make fun of him, doing a perfect imitation of his New York accent and tough-guy vernacular: “Yo, yo, yo, we’re the Bo Brothers, from the old neighborhood! You better watch out, or I’ll knock you out!”

Mark’s daughter warmed to me instantly. She was affectionate and always in my arms. My heart would soar when people mistook her for my daughter. Soon enough, the three of us had become our own little family unit. I was living the domestic life I’d been craving. And I knew Mark wanted at least one more child. I felt blessed.

 

IN MID-JUNE, I met Anna LoBianco’s sister Nina for breakfast in Hollywood. She brought her baby boy along. Nina had finally taken the BRCA test and discovered she was BRCA-1-positive, just like her sisters, Yummy and Anna. Neither Yummy nor Nina had been planning to undergo prophylactic mastectomy, but Anna had been imploring them to do so. Recently, Nina found a lump in her breast. She told me she was getting a needle biopsy in two weeks. She was freaked out and wanted to talk to me about my elective mastectomies.

I asked Nina how Anna was doing. I’d gotten periodic updates from Ali and I’d sent Anna e-mails over the months but she hadn’t replied for a long time. Nina said the cancer had continued to spread—just as Anna had feared—and had reached her brain. Anna had been wearing a neck brace since Christmas and now used a walker to get around. Still, Anna was doing astonishingly well. She continued to go to work every day. A few weeks earlier, on her birthday, she’d had a big party at Bank Street College, where she worked. Anna had been a vibrant hostess. Nina’s partner, Jodi, used to be in a lesbian punk band called Team Dresch. A few days after Anna’s birthday, the band reunited at the Knitting Factory for a benefit for Anna, to raise money for her medical bills. Anna sat in the wings backstage, singing along to every song and rocking out. At some point, Anna got up onstage to give the drummer a handkerchief to wipe off her face. As Anna slowly walked onstage wearing her neck brace, she pretended she was going to dive into the audience as they screamed and applauded her. She laughed and returned to her seat. The following night Anna insisted on going to Brooklyn to see Team Dresch perform again. Anna had been ecstatic both nights. Her body was failing, but her energy was vital and clear.

Nina and I talked about my choice to undergo the surgeries. I told her that by far the fear had been the worst part. I was afraid I’d feel deformed, afraid I wouldn’t feel at home in my reconstructed body, afraid that my sexual partners would find me unappealing. Afraid that somehow the physical and emotional consequences of my choice would sabotage my ability to find love. None of this turned out to be the case.

The surgeries themselves—while not pleasant—had been relatively easy. A few months later, I had my full range of motion back and felt 100 percent fine. There was simply no comparison between the inconvenience of surgery and the horror of fighting cancer.

We talked about the statistics. A woman who is BRCA-1-positive has up to an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer. Nina told me that her oncologist had declared—based on her family history—that Nina was certainly at the top of that scale; she had an 87 to 90 percent chance of contracting the disease. I’d been told that now—postmastectomy—I had a 1 to 3 percent chance. As I mentioned, the average American woman has a 10 percent chance of developing the disease. I was elated by my new odds.

Nina asked about my feelings regarding oophorectomy. I told her I planned to do it at around age forty, because I wanted to have children first. She said she’d like to have a second child and would definitely remove her ovaries afterward.

We went to the bathroom together and I took my shirt off and showed her my breasts. We remarked how Anna had shown me her new breasts just under a year ago. Nina was amazed at how real my reconstructed nipples looked—I told her that skin grafting was the secret. My scars were still quite prominent, but that didn’t faze her. Nina decided she was going to do it.

 

TWO WEEKS LATER, Nina got a call from her mother and Yummy saying that Anna was very ill. The cancer was now in Anna’s lungs; her breathing had grown shallow and she could barely speak. Nina and her partner, Jodi, shoved some clothes in a suitcase, grabbed their son, rushed to the airport, and got on the next flight to New York. When they landed, Nina had a slew of messages from Yummy on her cell phone, increasing in their urgency. Nina left Jodi to deal with the baggage and their child and jumped into a taxi. She called Yummy and sat helplessly on the other end of the line as she listened to Yummy and her mother weeping and soothing Anna: “Just think of beautiful things, Anna. Just let go.”

“I’m trying ….”

Anna LoBianco died just after midnight on June 29, 2006. Nina heard her sister die over the phone as she rushed to the hospital in a taxi. Anna had just turned thirty-six.