How to Explain Mastectomy to Kids

“Mommy, when are you getting your boobs cut off?”  

Not exactly the question I was expecting from my five-year-old during school drop off on a typical Monday morning.  I guess I had it coming. 

At this point we were about six months into my cancer journey. I was finishing chemo and the next step was a double mastectomy. Just like we had handled the rest of this ordeal, we were pretty straightforward with our kids about what was going on.  

First point of order: what do we call them? Breasts? Boobs? Tatas? Let’s just go with “boobs”, no need to get formal about this.  

One night my husband and I sat them down and explained mastectomy in the most kid friendly way we could devise. "Now that I’m finishing chemo and my tumor is nearly gone, they are going to cut off my boobs just to make sure that they get all the cancer, and it doesn’t come back."  

We told them that Mommy will be functioning with T-Rex arms for about two weeks, and we’d need their extra help during that time since I won’t be able to reach above my head.

Not knowing what to expect, we got a very practical set of questions from them. 

“Would it hurt?”

“No, probably not, but they will make sure that I have medicine to be comfortable.”

“How long will you be in the hospital?”

“Just a few days, and grandma will be here to help while I’m gone.”

They seemed pretty understanding about the situation and were satisfied with our answers. Another parenting high five as we appeared to have successfully navigated a possibly confusing and complicated conversation with ease.  

While I was personally grappling with what losing my boobs meant for my identity, it seemingly made perfect sense to my kids and they were happy to get back to playing Roblox and watching Frozen. All was normal.

What I didn’t expect was the follow-up questions the next day after they’d had the chance to process a bit more.

“What do they do with them after they cut them off?”  

Before I could even start to tackle that question, he fired off his next question excitedly.

“Could we put them in the compost!?”

Deep breath. “No. Sadly, you can’t take them  with you. And even if you could, they probably wouldn’t make great backyard composting material.” cancer story