Gisela Haensel

My friend recommended it to me after my surgery. A sports bra. For more comfort during recovery. The procedure hadn’t impacted my chest but not having anything stiff push against my breast felt good when resting between periods of walking around the house. A sports bra. One step up from no bra at all. A visible invisible step back to normality. No, I am not bedridden anymore, look at me, things are back in place. Wearing a bra shows, even though nobody can see it.

Getting myself a sports bra had proven to be quite a challenging operation. My breasts barely fit the largest size which made me feel really big and not sporty at all. Why on earth was I considered oversized by the industry for active people? When I later tried to wear my sports bra during Tai Chi class, it failed to hold my breasts in place, and they just slipped out from under it. How embarrassing! Here I was in my hard-won sports bra, and it couldn’t even support me during mild activities for cancer patients. I was afraid that the invisible would become visible, showing everybody that the bra had moved to the wrong place, bulging out of the upper most part of my sporty T-Shirt, leaving my breasts flowing freely underneath. I felt exposed and naked in all my feminine bodiness, unable to hold it – myself – together. The literal feeling of not fitting in.

I don’t know if anybody noticed my unease. Hopefully, it remained invisible to the other participants. I slipped out of the room to readjust myself, came back and continued class with the least movement possible. The week after, I brought back to life an old bra with a metal wire that had reliably held me in place during my active pre-cancer days. This bra was dark blue and decorated with lace, which made me look as if I was getting myself ready for a romantic date. This clash of purpose wasn’t lost on me. I didn’t feel romantic at all after two major belly surgeries and months of chemotherapy. I reassured myself that nobody else could see how overdressed I was for this Tai Chi class. All they noticed, if anything, was how this time, I moved more confidently than ever because I knew that this bra wouldn’t let me down.

I did manage to put the sports bra to use in the non-active parts of my life. Since it didn’t contain any metal, I was able to wear it during the check-up CT scans. Better to come (and stay) in my own clothes than switch to the hospital gown and feel like a patient. Only later did I realize how much of the hospital stayed with me when I left the building. Each scan