I’m thinking think about how little I actually was—now, working with children—how little I actually was and how little I understood. I think about what my parents went through, because I believe it was horrible for them, but they didn't show it too much. I don't remember it well either.

I think I was in the 9th or 10th grade, somewhere around there. And it was that classic meeting, where the biology teacher tells us: "Come on, kids. Boys - go to the schoolyard to play football, the girls will stay in the classroom." There was going to be a presentation of... uh... pads. And with that, the usual pause from the teacher, that awkwardness. The people from Always came, presented what they had to present, and because we behaved well, they had time to finish their story, so they said: "Come on, girls, let's teach you how to palpate your breasts!" Absolutely perfect! They showed us, and in the evening when I got home, I said: "Hey, let me try it too, see what happens."

So I go to the mirror, palpate the right breast, no problem, and when I palpate the left breast: panic, I find something. And the moment I find something… I have this expression: "I feel my gladiolas wilting." I sit there in the bathroom, in total panic. My first thought was: what do I tell my mom that I was doing? I went and told her, and I saw her crumble completely. Her face turned white. She let it be for a while. I think she panicked for about a month. I think the whole idea of going to the doctor and the possibility of discovering something bad was very frightening, and so she let it be for a bit until she gathered the courage, I think, to schedule us for an appointment at the doctor, to see what was going on. And that somehow opened up a year or so of check-ups, creams, bras filled with cabbage, all kinds of treatments. Because all the opinions were like: "Let's go more natural, let's use ointments, all sorts of things." Until finally, at the Foișor Orthopedic Hospital, we found a doctor who said that surgery was necessary because the nodule might suddenly grow, given my age and hormones and all that. It could become, first of all, ugly and secondly, harder to remove later, leaving visual issues with the breasts.

OK, so we went for surgery. There had just been that case with the doctor who operated on the wrong leg. And I remember, on the operating table, I didn't even have my glasses—I usually wear glasses and couldn't see— I was terrified and I kept repeating as they put the anesthetic on my face: "the left breast, the left breast, operate on the left breast." Horrified that something might go wrong.

Before the surgery, they told me the operation would result in a small, fine line around the areola. Precisely because I was young, and they wanted everything to be as aesthetic as possible. And that’s how it was supposed to be. But when I woke up from the surgery and had my first bandage change, I saw that the operation was actually much higher up. And placed diagonally compared to what they had said, the explanation being that it was easier to be done that way.

And about a week after the surgery itself, it was time to remove the stitches. So I went to the hospital. I still remember: it was either on my birthday or the day before. We went to the hospital, nicely, me with my dad. The doctor put me on the table, I undressed so he could access the operation, and he initially started pulling the threads like this: there were two threads sticking out, two knots. He pulled gently with his fingers at first. Nothing happened. He took a plaster-cutting scissors or something like that. He pulled harder. I already had tears in my eyes. It was a certain sensation, a pain. And I still remember: he turned his back, went to a cupboard, and pulled out some terrible large pliers. I don't know what they were, but they had more force. And he pulled so hard that I literally saw the skin lifting. At that moment, the nurse comes in, and she was like: "No, no, no, no, doctor, no, no, no, there was no need, I used resorbable stitches."

And then, somehow, from their conversation, I understood that he wasn't the one who closed me up, but the nurse. She made those knots as they do when using resorbable stitches. It would have been impossible for him to pull them out. And it was just… he shrugged, that's it. I think he disinfected or bandaged me somehow again there, without messing around or saying anything else. And he just sent me home. And I left. My dad was waiting for me in the hallway. So, I was: crying, but not crying, I was just… that pain, just the sensation of pain broke me. I was… I was incredibly afraid of anyone touching the scar, just because I was scared of the pain, it didn’t hurt in itself, but the idea of someone touching it was weird. And I left, exactly with this thought: "Well! Now, the scar left after the operation is definitely not going to be just a small line."

For a few years, it was quite visible, dark, kind of bruised, and after that, it simply became interesting to tell the story at the beach or... because inevitably it could be seen through the bra. And then I have this thing where I... If there's something I'm not 100% sure about or it bothers me, or something happened, I start by talking about that thing to get it out of the conversation. Yeah. And nothing happened. I mean, I didn't take any further action or... eh, I let it go. I said that’s it. I only remember a later conversation with another doctor who was horrified that the doctor decided to operate, saying that what I had there, that nodule, wouldn’t have caused any problems, ever. But somehow, I think that doctor was recommended to us by someone, and so we trusted him. Because my parents are people who trust doctors. Well, if that person is a doctor, then it's okay. And so, probably coming from a reliable source that he's a good doctor, we said, well, let’s do it. If he says so, then he must know what he’s talking about. We’re not smarter than him, right?

I think. Yes. I think progressively, over the years, I understood that what happened certainly wasn’t okay. My parents didn’t try to normalize what happened, I mean they weren’t like: "Come on, it's okay, dear!" So really, no. But there wasn’t any major revolt either, so I didn’t revolt. It seemed traumatic to me. It seemed bad, but that was it. I got over it. I said there’s no point in staying... stuck on that thing, and I took it as: well, it’s a mark that I’ll have from now on. That’s it, I accept it.

It helped me immensely to realize how important health is and what it means to take care of yourself and to check up on your health year by year. And there was another cool realization—the fact that it kept my mom on her toes to get her tests done too. And at some point, we were going to the doctor together. She would make the appointments. We’d go, get ourselves checked. And that was it.

I believe that a woman is beautiful primarily through her attitude and the way she carries herself, not necessarily by what clothes she wears or how she looks in itself. But attitude, first and foremost, is what defines a woman. Yes.

Now I’m an art teacher. Besides that, I’m also an artist. I’m part of the Romanian Illustrators Club, and I also have my own stained-glass workshop. In fact, my goal is to make art as... to reach as many people as possible.

I once described my positivity to someone by saying that my glass is always full and my glass is in a bowl to catch the water that overflows from the glass.