It wasn't until Lynda Robinson awoke from surgery that she finally found peace with living the rest of her life without breasts.
She was strapped to the operating table like Jesus to the cross - arms splayed and wrists shackled - eight months after she learned a golf ball-sized tumour in her armpit was actually a sign of breast cancer.
She felt like she was herself a sacrifice, she said: she would give up her breasts so she could live. Right before the anesthesia kicked in, Robinson, a deeply spiritual Christian, simply prayed.
Hours later, on July 31, 2013, Robinson awoke, felt her chest in the aftermath of the double mastectomy and felt... the same.
"Up until this point, I believed I would be different," said Robinson of that day, just 24 hours after her 19th wedding anniversary.
"How can I feel the same when I'm missing two body parts?"
But she did.
"That was when I was able to feel, head, heart: I am not my body, I am a soul."
It was one of the many affirmations, written on many dozens of postcards that Robinson kept in a box she jokingly called her "Tinkerbell tin" - reminders she read when she was too exhausted from chemotherapy to do much else.
And two years later, after choosing not to go with breast reconstruction, she feels the same way.
Robinson, 51, said since the December 2012 diagnosis she felt as if a "little Lynda" lived inside her head, representing the inner turmoil she felt even as she tried to stay positive on the outside.
"She was screaming all the time," said Robinson, who said it took a lot of personal work to get past her diagnosis.
"I needed to be able to rant and rave, cry and scream and rail at this outcome and not be censored. And the only way I could do that was by myself."
Now that voice is silent, but she's still bothered by the fact that when she walks around Prince George, she doesn't see women who look like her. Robinson knows of one other woman who doesn't use breast forms to cover her flat chest.
Robinson has adopted the mantra of the U.S.-based group she joined during her cancer journey - Flat and Fabulous - and wants to do her part making survivors feel comfortable in their post-surgical bodies, whatever the result, to reinforce what she knows: womanhood, personhood, is not tied to our body parts.
"I'm breast-free and I'm still me. I'm whole as is," said Robinson, who wants to start a local breast cancer support group in the spring. "It's a matter of self-acceptance."
BRCA gene mutations
Robinson first learned in 2009 she might be a likely candidate for cancer when a cousin tested positive for the BRCA gene - a mutation most common in hereditary cases of breast cancer that drastically increases a person's likelihood of getting the disease.
"I didn't get tested and I just forgot about it and lived my life," she said.
It was a deliberate decision; Robinson took a course about the mutation so she knew what she was facing: women with either strain have a 40 to 85 per cent chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. For those with strain two, like Robinson, it also meant a 15 to 20 per cent chance of developing ovarian cancer.
The gene many associate with actress Angelina Jolie, though she has the first strain (which contains an even higher risk for ovarian cancer.)
After she was diagnosed with cancer, Robinson would learn she did, in fact, have the gene.
"The diagnosis is life changing," she said.
"Everybody's affected."
Worse, it touched her daughter Sarah, then eight. Robinson tried to explain what she'd be going through in an age appropriate way. She told Sarah she would be getting treatment and that she would live.
"She seemed okay with that," remembered Robinson, but then she overheard her daughter muttering in her sleep. "I heard her say "But momma's not going to die.'
"It just wrecked me because I thought 'She's going to have to witness this.' Another reason that I had to try and be strong," she said.
Although the cancer was just in her left breast, Robinson opted to remove the right breast as well and had her ovaries and part of her fallopian tubes removed as well.
"I still have very high chance of recurrence because of the gene," she said.
Such surgeries reduce the risk of breast cancer by at least 95 per cent, according the U.S.-based National Cancer Institute.
Saying no to reconstruction
At first Robinson wanted a surgery to rebuild the flesh. But her Prince George plastic surgeon required patients have a Body Mass Index less than 30. Robinson would have to leave her community and her oncologist, something she would not consider.
Robinson is happy with her choice.
"I was so naive about reconstruction," said Robinson, citing the fact that reconstructed breasts can't feel anything, that they can hide recurrences of cancer, that it can take several surgeries and many months to complete.
All along the way her best friend Shirley Morin kept reminding Robinson she was sexy and beautiful and just as much a woman with or without her breasts.
"We don't live in a breast-free society," said Morin, making it hard for women like Robinson who want to live without breasts.
Morin noted that there's a day devoted to Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day, but no similar sentiment for women like Robinson - something Robinson said is misleading.
"We are actually a majority," said Robinson, citing a 2014 study that showed the most women who get double mastectomies don't choose reconstruction.
Less than 42 per cent of the women who participated in the research led by
Dr. Monica Morrow of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, opted for that option. Researchers spoke with 485 women in Detroit and Los Angeles.
"The problem is women who don't have reconstruction, wear breast forms," Robinson said. "There's no flat and fabulous awareness day. I think a lot of women are afraid to admit they don't have breasts and they're afraid to show it."
Many women also choose a form of breast conservation surgery - or lumpectomy - where only the tumour and nearby tissue is removed, rather than the whole breast.
In many cases, women who undergo this surgery don't do reconstructive surgery, according to the American Cancer Society.
People have called Robinson courageous for living as she does and being so open about her experiences.
"It's not," Robinson said.
"This is just me. This is my life. This is how I live it: authentic. (I'm) not saying that someone who wears breast forms is inauthentic - that's authentic for them."
Flat and Fabulous
When Robinson joined the private Facebook group run by Flat and Fabulous, founded in 2013, there were only 300 members. Now, she's one of 1,800.
It gave her access to an often invisible community and much needed support to help her understand what she could expect post-surgery.
But even in the private group, she found body image issues persisted. Thin women were more likely to post photos. Others were ashamed of their chests if there was leftover flesh, as is common, Robinson said.
"It's a fact of life. Women are all shapes and sizes, but the women who were willing to show themselves on the page were thin women," she said. "I have extra bits. I don't have the great surgical outcome that some ladies have."
She wanted to change the conversation, so she posted a picture and became one of the few "bigger ladies" willing to put themselves out there.
"I wanted to say it's okay, whatever you look like, whatever size, it doesn't matter."
It resonated, Robinson said, and later this month she'll be heading to Florida to take part in a photo shoot with the organization to present a more diverse representation of women who live breast-free.
Building local support
Even as Robinson is active in her online community, it isn't enough. She'd like to create a space where breast cancer survivors can meet face-to-face this spring.
Although CancerConnection, run by the Canadian Cancer Society to connect those affected by cancer, was a huge help for her, Robinson wants a group focused solely on breast cancer.
Morin said when the two are out and about, people stop to talk to the "inspirational" Robinson about her experience.
"It's like a whisper," said Morin of those conversations. "Prince George is such a huge supporter of breast cancer. We have the walk, we have the Evening in Pink but not a group here to support women."
Robinson hopes to create a group where people can have informal conversations about breast cancer journeys and experiences in "a safe place where they can talk and not be judged."
She said she believes her journey with breast cancer in the last two years is leading her somewhere.
"It's going to be inspiring for someone else, it's going to be a blessing and it's going to make a difference," she said.
"I don't feel like I'm an activist, I'm just a person who wants to be a good human being and make a difference."
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