my friend kate has an incredible photo essay on her many trips under the knife to have tumors removed from her breasts up on utata speaks. scary and powerful:

My breasts are starting to resemble a game of tic-tac-toe. When I was 17, I felt the first lump in my right breast. I knew it was sizeable; when I touched it, I’d picture a peanut, still in the shell. But the surgeon all but laughed during the consultation. "More like a pea," he assured me. A few weeks later when I was prone on an operating table, dwarfed under piles of wires, he remarked in surprise: "Would you look at that! There's another one!" A second tumor was nestled beneath the first; they were hooked together like a barbell. I was too flustered and nauseous to snarl "I told you so."