Beloved Bust is about building a community of women that supports one another in the beautiful art of self care. Through information to help understand the body, supportive banter, and instructive manual therapy techniques,you can find the support you need and deserve whether you are just diagnosed or have history of breast cancer, breast surgeries, and breast tissue density . Beloved Bust is comm
itted to helping you navigate a very tender time with the tools, resources, and self confidence you need to heal and connect with your body. A little about me and how Beloved Bust was born:
I’m Melissa. I was gifted with small breasts. (Heck of a way to start a page, isn’t it?)
When I was a young woman I experienced, as many women do, shame and self consciousness about my body. I’d see those “magazine perfect” figures that we’re raised to believe are “normal” and I somehow always felt “less than”. But as I grew older (and wiser), I realized that there’s so much more to me than that! I’m the one who loves Harry Potter and whose Girl Scout summer camp name was “Termite” (don’t ask!). I like rocks, love gluten free pizza and pancakes, love to travel to see my 19 year old daughter in college in San Francisco. I’m a single mom and a casual singer songwriter with a guitar. Heck, I even recently took up tap dancing for the first time… and I LOVE it! I ride my bike, travel and say hi to the woods (yes, I might be a tree-hugger). I adore road trips and I’m a never ending seeker for self knowledge and spiritually. I’m also a myofascial release therapist. A huge chapter of my work as a therapist was spent in a pain management center, doing all of their manual therapy in the clinic. For years I worked with people in pain. I've seen scars, I've felt trauma beneath my hands. I was used to it. Until that one day… I had an amazing client named Kathy who drove 2 hours just to see me. Kathy had breast cancer and had undergone a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction surgery. One of her implants was rejected so they had to remove it and wait to heal before they’d try again. She’d been through Hell. I started our treatment with a very light touch, an arm pull. She was surprised as I worked, she said, "I didn't even know that I hurt there." Her entire right arm and hand were so swollen with lymphedema. She wore the sleeve that she was supposed to but she still had intense pain and pressure. Her fingers would balloon with fluid and the texture of her skin dimpled, only getting worse with activity. It was hard to figure out what made her pain worse, but here she was with me… almost in tears. "Do you mind if I look at the scar?" I asked. Like I said, I’m used to seeing scars but for some reason, that day, Kathy's scar hit me right in the gut. I felt a wave of intensity as I saw the story of what she had been through. Twisted and taut with scar tissue, blackened and discolored with radiation burn, her skin was hardened and sunken in. Kathy wouldn’t look into my eyes. All of the sadness, pain and trauma that she had been through… and all of the shame. I recognized that look. Even though I’d seen so much in my work before, this… I was surprisingly angered by what I was seeing. Who is letting this woman walk around like this is OK? Who is going to cut on this women and tell her she is going to be fine? I had a singular voice inside me that screamed, "This is not OK!"
If I couldn't get through to the doctors then I had to get through to the women who were being maimed in this way. Made to feel less than. Made to feel ashamed. Beloved Bust was born in that moment. You are more than your scars, more than your diagnosis and current physical condition. You’re a woman who maybe loves Harry Potter too, or biking or gardening. My purpose is helping survivors of breast cancer take the first step toward regaining their vitality, range of motion and comfort following breast cancer treatment. There is life after breast cancer and I’m here to help you find it. Join our facebook community, From Breast Cancer to Beloved Bust, a closed group for women to connect and support each other.
