mastectomy last year.
(Photo: Barbara Hart)
Barb Grover doesn’t have breasts any more, and doesn’t mind who knows it.
As part of her cancer treatment, the Portland woman had a double mastectomy one year ago next week. On Saturday, to celebrate, she’ll be joining thousands of other people to ride through the streets of Portland with nothing on.
She’s invited other post-mastectomy women and their supporters to join her at whatever level of clothing they wish. She’s dubbed it “Critical Mastectomy.”
“Once the treatment is over, we go about our lives and look like we’re assuming a normal day to day,” Grover, 54, said in an interview Thursday. “And most of us have scars. That doesn’t get talked about a lot in public. We see Angelina Jolie and she looks like her old self again. But that’s not the path that a lot of women choose, or can choose. … This is what it really looks like, people; this is what it’s really like. It’s not awful. It’s just different. We just need to be a little more open about it.”
