I Get to Keep Them (Draft + craft notes)

Clean draft

I get to keep them. Ovaries. Am I right?

Craft note: This is a hook + a wink. It disarms the reader before you ask them to hold something heavy.

I have felt fear, and I still do. Sometimes it’s sharp, sometimes it’s constant—either way, damn, it’s heavy.

Fear and uncertainty feel like old train stations: if everything is fine, you don’t stop there often.
But I’ve stopped there a lot since June 2022.

Craft note: A simple metaphor works best when it’s everyday. “Train station” is clear for almost any reader.

And let me tell you: it just takes time. No magic pill. No single answer. Definitely no knight in shiny armour. It’s you and your thoughts. (I remember hearing this on a Lewis Howes episode and thinking: yes. Exactly.)

The thought starts like this: I have to make a decision.
Then comes the spiral—the ifs and shoulds and clouds. Time goes by, and somehow you end up with more questions, more books, more information… and not necessarily more clarity.

Craft note: Short sentence → longer sentence → short sentence gives rhythm. It mirrors the “spiral” feeling without explaining it.

“It is your choice,” a doctor once told me. Wise words. LOL.

I hated those words.

I don’t go to the doctor to be told you choose. Also, the amount of questions in my head cannot be understood in a 15-minute consult. But if you’ve done enough thinking—if you’ve done years of it—you eventually hear the same words and understand them differently.

And that different understanding is powerful.

Craft note: This shows growth. Readers stay with you when you move from “I hate this” to “I see it differently now.”

Coming to terms with this decision has been its own kind of work: understanding that saying yes also means saying yes to another level of responsibility.

And I’ve walked this road before—but it doesn’t get easy the second time.

It means you know, clinically, that if you refuse treatment you may increase the chance that the outcome you fear actually happens.

I’m BRCA1+. When I was first diagnosed, I was told my lifetime risk of breast cancer was around 80%, and ovarian cancer around 45%. Those numbers followed me everywhere—day and night—loyal as bruises.

Craft note: “I was told” keeps this grounded as your experience, not a medical claim. “Loyal as bruises” is vivid without being complicated.

I’ve been lucky. I choose to see it that way.

I’ve struggled at the most silly, unexpected moments… and then moved through things I thought would destroy me almost seamlessly. That contrast still surprises me.

Sometimes one simple “How are you?” would throw me off completely. There were days I couldn’t handle it. I hated the office mornings where people walked past asking “How are you?” without thinking I might actually answer.

Because what I wanted to say was:
I feel like shit. I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer.

So no—I couldn’t say, “Fine, and you?”

And yes, I’ll say it: in England, sometimes the politeness feels louder than reality. (At least in the average working office.)

Craft note: This paragraph is strong because it’s specific and honest. The risk is sounding like a general attack on a country. You protect your voice by keeping it tied to your workplace experience.

Coming to terms with my own choices about my own body has been one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. I know other things I’ve lived through might look harder to other people. But this one got inside my mind and stayed there.

Decisions about your body don’t just happen in appointments. They happen in your head. Over and over.

Doctors can give clear, safer guidelines, but making your own decision can still feel lonely.

They tell you what the protocols say. Sometimes they share their clinical experience to offer perspective. But in the end, the final words land the same way:

“It’s your decision.”

And it’s lonely because you can never know what the alternative would have looked like. You can never test the parallel life. You also can’t always tell if you’re being brave or biased, realistic or stubborn.

Craft note: You’re naming the real conflict: uncertainty + responsibility. That’s what makes the reader trust you.

I have come to terms with one decision over years.

Today, I get to keep them.

I’m okay. I’m at peace with it.

This has always been my ideal scenario. My ovaries play a critical role in my body as a woman, and removing them would mean another shift—another unknown—and I have had enough unknown for one lifetime.

I want to believe I could do it if I had to. But in March 2024, I went to my hometown hospital and met with a genetics specialist. After a three-hour consult, she summed it up like this:

“You’re going to be so afraid of ovarian cancer that you’ll take them out, just in case.”

At the time, that felt insulting.

It suggested fear would dictate my health. That prevention through surgery and removal was the only “responsible” path.

And I’m going to say something honest that I’m not proud of: I judged her.

I looked at her and thought, You don’t look like someone I should trust with a decision this big.

If I go to the dentist and their teeth are falling apart… if I see a nutritionist who looks malnourished… if I go to a hairdresser who’s bald… it messes with your confidence, even if it shouldn’t.

That day, her appearance got into my head. And it got to me.

Craft note: This is the cleanest way to keep this moment: you frame it as confession, not an insult. That protects the reader’s empathy for you.

Still, she was the specialist. Specialists are specialists. So I carried her words anyway.

I went downstairs to the car park where my mum had just arrived to pick me up. She was smiling, full of joy—she’s a lifter, she always looks like she’s carrying light.

I said, “Mum, listen to me. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

I could barely talk because my eyes were boiling with tears.

“But please—just accept it. Don’t fight me. Don’t question it. It’s hard enough as it is.”

And I cried the whole way home.

I have cried a lot between 38 and 40.

But I didn’t cry in the room when I was told.

I cried before that—in front of strangers—when I got the text saying I needed to go back to the hospital after a biopsy. I knew what that usually meant.

Maybe not certainty. But possibility. And sometimes possibility is enough to break you.

When I finally got into the room, the specialist asked, “Why do you think you’re here?” She held my hand in a kind, compassionate way that I will always remember. I treasure that moment. She has been fantastic—so human—and she somehow made my journey feel gentler than it had any right to be.

So today—Thursday 12 February, one week away from my 40th (ssshhhhhh)—I’m proud to say this:

I’m at peace with deciding I don’t have to take my ovaries out.
I can choose to live with them.

And that is why “coming to terms” has been so hard.

Because it means responsibility.
It means being accountable for my health enough that keeping them can still be a safe choice.

So I’ve changed my life.

• I go to the gym regularly now.
• For the last three years since my diagnosis, I’ve learned about food.
• I sleep. I dream a lot, but I sleep well too.
• And I’ve grown a new set of balls. I’ve tested them. If something isn’t kind, I’m happy to walk away—and I do. I stand up, and I walk away.

These things don’t guarantee anything. But they are my way of choosing life on purpose.

And I can live with that.

Craft note: Ending with “I can live with that” echoes the earlier fear without repeating it. It lands like a closing door.

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What you did well (so you can repeat it on purpose)

• A strong hook: “I get to keep them.” instantly creates stakes.
• Clear emotional core: fear → choice → responsibility → peace.
• Specific scenes: car park, mum arriving, the text message, the office “How are you?”.
• Your voice: humour (LOL, ssshhhhh), blunt honesty, and tenderness.

Places readers may stumble (revision targets)

1. Timeline clarity: You mention June 2022, then March 2024, then “today.” This draft works, but one sentence like “I was diagnosed in ___” would anchor everything.
2. Risk numbers: Keeping “I was told” helps. If you want, you can add “at the time” to show these numbers can change as research changes.
3. The specialist appearance section: It’s powerful as a confession. It becomes risky if it reads like mocking. Keep the “I’m not proud” framing—it's doing important work.
4. “Cancer factor down 40%”: I removed the exact percentage here because it reads like a promise. If you want it back, phrase it as:
   • “From what I’ve learned, these changes can reduce risk—maybe even significantly.”
   • “My doctors and my reading suggest lifestyle can shift risk. Not erase it. Shift it.”

Craft note: In memoir, credibility is everything. You can be emotional and still be precise.

Micro-skills you’re practising in this piece

• Rhythm: mixing short punches with long spirals.
• Concrete detail: scenes > summaries.
• Ownership of perspective: “I felt / I judged / I hated” keeps it honest.
• Reframing: you show growth without pretending the fear never existed.