Breast cancer strikes one out of eight American woman.* Many of these women undergo a mastectomy, that is, surgery to remove the affected breast. A large number of these women do not choose breast reconstruction and thus live with a mastectomy scar. Other women do not immediately choose breast reconstruction surgery and for some period of time experience a scar. How women deal with the presence of the scar can affect their healing process and their recovery.

For the junior/senior seminar, to simulate the mastectomy/scar experience, each student designed and constructed a profile of his/her body on a six-foot long by three-foot wide sheet of brown paper, marking a mastectomy scar. Recognizing the scar as a scar without sentimentalizing or dismissing it, the students also approached the scar as a life line, recognizing that if the breast cancer had not been diagnosed and treatment undertaken, there might be no future. Thus, this scar is a visible statement of medical intervention to remove the cancer and work towards a cancer-free future.

Each student decorated the scar with representations of the people and activities he/she valued and hoped to continue to enjoy in the future. The form of representations was wide open: poetry, prayers, drawings, photos of one's significant other, family, friends, and pets, as well as images cut out of magazines to represent hobbies, sports and recreational pursuits. They were free to also decorate the rest of their bodies in fanciful or realistic fashion.

Accompanying this exercise was a written assignment in which each student discussed what he/she experienced in creating and decorating the scar. The selections accompanying the outlines are exerted from these papers. The students voted to use their anonymous profiles in an exhibit to promote Breast Cancer Awareness. There was nopenalty for deciding not to enter one's outline in the exhibit. Twelve of the fifteen students are represented here.

*Men also experience breast cancer but the rate is a mere fraction of the incidence for women.
"The 1-in-8 women statistic is accurate, but only if you live to 85. And as you get older and
remain free of cancer, the 1-in-8 figure starts dropping because you have already lived out many
of the at-risk years. If, for example, you are now -70 and still cancer free, your chances have
dropped to 1 in 20."(Brody, NY Times,' 10/12/99, F7)