Tag: love

It’s Okay

Today is the day. Today is the day I’ve been waiting nervously, anxiously for. Today is the day I’ve been dreading. I made the decision to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I came to this decision after three other lumpectomies, albeit all benign, and I don’t want to have to make a decision like this ever again.

I’ve joked about the cancer, mocked it and made fun of myself for getting breast cancer. Some might think I was being callous, not being caring and thoughtful of others that are and have gone through this, but I’m not. This has been the only way I can deal with having cancer. To mock it and laugh about it is my defense against it. Otherwise I would walk around like a zombie feeling sorry for myself, sorry, that is not me. Besides I wouldn’t put my family and friends through that misery.

My family and friends have been outstanding through this long waiting period. There have been lunches and dinners (with alcohol), shopping trips to buy zip up tops, pajamas and undershirts for the healing process and too many hugs to count. A dear coworker even bought me a massage for the night before surgery just to help me relax and have positive energy. Poor Mitch, who has especially had to endure my warped sense of humor and totally inappropriate comments, has no idea how much I love him. I told him last night that he was the best time I ever had. Just in case.

This morning after no food or drink after midnight, not even a cup of coffee, I get to go have dye injected in me, have both my boobs whacked off and the rebuilding begun. Of course on top of having all of this fun, I get to go wearing NO MAKEUP. This from the woman who gets up an hour early on hunting trips just to shower and put on makeup.

Now that today has finally come, I’m scared. I wasn’t going to let it get to me, but it did. Damn cancer. But I’ve decided that today it’s okay to be scared.

My Rose Garden

So far the real downside to breast cancer is that I had to give up my hormones. I know that in the great grand scheme of things, giving up taking hormones is insignificant to staying alive, but these hot flashes are miserable. That sounds petty and small to some I’m sure, but until you’ve had a hot flash you have no idea what I’m talking about.

You don’t know what to wear, either you don’t have enough clothes on or way too many and sometimes not enough on that you can remove them in public. You never know when one is going to strike, no warning, just all of a sudden there is blast furnace turned up on high inside you and you can’t get any cooling relief fast enough. I keep a small fan on my desk and am constantly turning it on and off, to the point that I’m starting to get the crazy eye looks from some of my coworkers. Of course, they’re a little scared of me under normal circumstances anyway, so this just adds to the fear.

Its small comfort that it’s late autumn and winter is coming, maybe it won’t be so bad with colder weather. Of course the neighbors will think I’ve lost my mind when I’m walking the dogs in a snowstorm wearing a short sleeve t-shirt and shorts.

Stupid breast cancer, couldn’t it have been something else that could have caused it besides hormones? I would have gladly given up turnips or fish, (even though I don’t eat turnips or fish anyway) to save myself from breast cancer. Of course I don’t know for sure that the hormones caused the breast cancer, not yet anyway. I’ll find that out after the surgery when they take it all out and some of my lymphatic system too. It just sucks that not only do I have to worry about breast cancer, but I have to be miserable off and on too.

Where is that rose garden, nobody ever promised me anyway?

My World Turned Inside Out

I have been sitting here trying to think of something witty or profound to say and nothing comes to mind. I’m not feeling especially wise or funny right now. To be honest, I’m feeling lost and scared. Every year I go get my basic health exams done, you know the ones, Pap smear and mammogram. In the past both have come back questionable, so I always keep my annual appointments religiously. I had my first breast biopsy when I was eighteen. I’ve had three more since and so far they have all been benign. After the mammogram the technician put me back in a tiny room to wait half naked for the radiologist to read the X-rays and pronounce me free to go. There was a knock on the door and the technician said the radiologist saw something he didn’t like and wanted more x-rays.

After more smashing, contorting and discomfort I was sent back to my tiny little room to wait. Everything was going to be fine, I told myself, the same as always. The knock on the door and look on technician’s face said something different. The radiologist wanted to do a sonogram because he wasn’t sure if he saw something or if it was a shadow from the scar tissue made from the last breast biopsy I had done four years ago. Off I went to get a sonogram. This day was not turning out the way I had planned. The technician completed the sonogram and took off to show his work to the radiologist telling me to lie still and wait until he came back. I waited for what seemed like an eternity thinking what was wrong, how difficult could this be? The technician knocked on the door and in walked the radiologist with the technician. This was not good. The last time I saw the radiologist was four years ago when he saw the last lump. The radiologist explained that he wanted to watch the tech do the sonogram to see exactly what the tech was doing and what was showing on the screen. Oh goody, now I have two men looking at my naked chest and not in a good way.

After ten minutes of rolling the wand back and forth across my breast, the radiologist explained that the “lesion” or “mass” was new and not a shadow from the scar tissue of the previous biopsy. He said he would call my doctor and recommend either an MRI or a needle biopsy to find out if the lesion was benign or not. The technician made a DVD copy of the x-rays and the sonogram for me to take with me to the surgeon for show and tell. G-Rated of course. My gynecologist called and we discussed how to proceed. Once again it would be the needle biopsy, fun, fun, fun. She also explained that since I had been on hormones for seven years and if the mass turned out to be cancerous that I would have to stop taking the hormones. I told her that wasn’t she just the bearer of more bad news. I was not looking forward to hot flashes. Of course, I figured that it would be another benign tumor just like the previous three times. I called the surgeon’s office and made an appointment for Friday, October 11th, giving me a week and a half to stew about it. Outwardly I knew it would be nothing as always, but inwardly there was this little voice inside my head saying, “are you sure? What if…?”

I played off the impending office visit, telling Mitch and myself that it was no big deal, then immediately following up with a statement about just lopping both breasts off and not having to worry about this in the future. Friday finally came and I was so keyed up about going so that I could get this over with that I totally forgot to take my boob DVD with me. I walked into the reception area and signed in, making a joke about being early. The receptionist smiled, asked for the DVD and I gave her this stricken look, I couldn’t believe it, I forgot it. I knew exactly where it was, sitting on my dresser. I apologized profusely and walked out to call Mitch and ask him to drop what he was doing and bring it to me. What a nincompoop, I suck. Mitch being the saint he is, brought it to me in record breaking time so I could still make my appointment on time.

I took my prize back inside with me and handed it over to the receptionist to give to the surgeon. Once ushered in to the examination room, I got undressed from the waist up, donned the fashionable gown and waited for my surgeon to come in make it all better. We crossed the hall to the room with his sonogram machine so that he could find the lesion again and know where to stab me so he could take the tissue samples for testing. His nurse squirted the lubricant on my skin, and it was off the races with my surgeon rolling the wand over the area marked on the sonogram and x-rays searching for the lesion. He couldn’t find it. Back and forth he rolled it over and over and didn’t see anything suspect. He was getting frustrated and I was getting worried. Was I wasting everyone’s time on a witch hunt? Of course I wasn’t the one that found it the first time, but my brain works in a weird twisted way, I blame myself first. After about fifteen minutes of a fruitless search for the mass, my surgeon decided he wanted to call in the big guns.

It was decided that I would go to the Women’s Center and get a sonogram needle biopsy there by the hospital’s radiologist. Evidently the women’s center had a bigger better sonogram machine and they would stand a better chance of finding it than the surgeon’s office machine. Since it was after four on Friday, I would have to wait until Monday the following week for the scheduler at the women’s center to call and set up an appointment, another weekend of waiting and wondering. The stress was really starting to build and the little voice was getting louder, the “what ifs” coming more and more. I still presented an outward, “this is no big deal.” But inside I had a bad feeling and told Mitch so that night in bed.

His response was, “What do you want to do?”

“There’s nothing I can do but wait. I just want it done and know the outcome, that’s all.”

Monday afternoon on the 14th I got a call from the scheduler setting up my appointment for that Wednesday at 2pm. I wish I could have gone right then, I don’t do waiting well. You should see me during the Christmas season, I make Mitch crazy. Thankfully I was not responsible for taking the DVD to the center; my surgeon’s nurse ran that over for me. The staff at the Women’s Center was amazing, caring kind women that treated me so wonderfully. I can truthfully say that everyone I had dealt with so far have been the most wonderful caring professionals in the healthcare field. These are special people to do what they do every day.

As the radiologist took the syringe and prepared to stab me with it the technician reached down and grabbed my hand and held it. I looked up at her and she had such a soft sweet smile on her face, it was almost like having my mom standing there holding my hand telling me that everything would be alright. That was so unexpected and reassuring, I almost started crying. I felt like I wasn’t alone in this, that they were there rooting for me as much as I was. I felt a sharp prick and then a burning sensation in my left breast; I looked up at the screen and could see the needle moving back and forth squirting the lidocaine around the area to be snipped. It was weird and a little creepy looking at the screen and seeing the needle then the fireplace log starter moving around inside me while the radiologist hunted for the best site to take tissue samples. Again it was time for more waiting. Two to three days before I would get the results and since it was late Wednesday afternoon, I probably would not get the results until Monday.

Monday came and went no phone call; does that mean good or bad news? Tuesday I called the doctor’s office finally out of patience and was told that the results had just gotten there but the doctor hadn’t read them yet and would call me back as soon as he read through the report. My world stopped as soon as I heard the doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone, “I’m sorry, the pathology report shows you have breast cancer. It’s a small mass, which is good…” he droned on. But that was all I heard, “breast cancer” then there was a roaring in my ears and my chest tightened. I squeezed back tears, took a deep breath and clenched my jaw shut to keep from blubbering out loud. No, my mind screamed, no not now, not today. Like any other day would be a better day for cancer. I focused on what the doctor was saying. He said that he wanted me to come in and talk to him and discuss our plan of action. The sooner the better, I could come in today or tomorrow whichever was better for me. I could get a mastectomy or a lumpectomy and get radiation therapy.

I told myself I could do this and called Mitch to tell him. As soon as I started to tell him, I couldn’t talk, tears ran down my face, I took a breath and blurted it out. In his usual calm voice he said that we would get through this. We would go to the doctor’s office discuss our options and go from there. “WE” being the operative word. Not you but we. We were a couple, a team and we would fight the fight together. I don’t think I could have loved him more than at that moment. Mitch had my back, no matter what.

It is funny how you can read something and it doesn’t affect you as much as saying it out loud. I could see the words breast cancer in my mind or even say breast cancer out loud, but when I added the two words, “I have”, I would tear up, my voice dropped to a whisper and I could barely speak the entire sentence, “I have breast cancer.” It took me three days to be able say that without crying, but now I can and I can smile and think about the positives in my life. I am working with the surgeon, doing research and talking the best source in the world, my friend who went through this last year and is amazing. She is the strongest woman I know who has inspired me to try to be half as strong as she was.

I gave myself a wallow time to feel sorry for myself, but now it’s time to get beyond that and fight the fight of my life. I’m done wallowing it’s time to put on the boxing gloves.

Forgiveness

Can you ever forgive yourself? Is it even possible to really forgive one of your transgressions and fully move on? Forgiving yourself is harder than forgiving someone else. We can look at another person’s faults and misgivings, come up with a hundred reasons why they did what they did and forgive them for it. It may take a while to move on, but eventually we accept the misdeed or error in judgment by someone else and get on with our lives and relationships. So why is it so hard for us to forgive our own missteps? Do we have higher expectations of our selves than others or is it that we look at a lapse in judgment as an insurmountable failure?

I am not proud of my youth. I have done some really stupid things growing up. I made a lot of bad decisions born out of low self-esteem and when something jogs a memory I still cringe inwardly. I look back into the past with loathing for my actions. Granted I was a stupid teenager then and am well into my fifties now, but something about that time in my life still haunts me. There are so many regrets and a desire for a do over, knowing the outcome would probably still be the same, but that doesn’t stop the wishing.

I didn’t kill anybody or maliciously try to hurt others; my transgressions were all directed at me. I wish I had pushed myself more in school, gone to college, had some direction, instead of going along with the aimless mindset of a self-absorbed teenager. I thought that if a boy paid attention to me it meant he loved me. It took me a few years to figure out what real love was.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, my husband, children and my friends, but I wish I could have been better. I wish I had made smarter decisions and wiser choices, not the bonehead mistakes that I can’t seem to put in the past forever. I know I’m not the person I was then; I don’t need validation from anyone else now. The validation has to come from me and grant me the forgiveness of my past sins.

When I look back over the years of my adulthood there have been many great accomplishments. My husband who I love with all of my heart, my two sons, who are all grown up and have families of their own, a daughter that I didn’t give birth to, but love as much and a few truly special friends that I would walk through fire for. These are all the best part of me, the today me.

So what is it about those short seven years of my life that haunt me more than the thirty plus years since? How do I absolve myself, move on and truly face the future with hope and resolve? I can’t answer that, but I am working on it.

Cry Baby

I am a crier. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big sissy or a baby. I don’t let the little things get me down. I don’t whine and pout when I don’t get my way, which happens often in this world. I’m not even a super emotional person. I can watch the evening news and see the horrors that “man” wreaks on innocent victims and I usually just shake my head and wonder at the senseless acts. Maybe it’s because it is man doing it to man that I don’t get that emotional about it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been lucky to not have witnessed any random violence first hand or maybe there is something missing in me, the empathy gene.

But watch something on the news about acts of cruelty to animals and the tears just roll. I get so angry that someone could hurt a creature that trusts and loves us; it’s probably a good thing I don’t get to face the offender. It would not be pretty.

See a sad scene in a movie and I’m a basket case. I cried through the whole movie “War Horse”. I didn’t even want to go, but Mitch did so we went. I love the sappy chick flicks, maybe that’s where I show all of my emotions. It’s not real so it’s okay to let loose and feel the moment. No one is there to mock me for my tears, but Mitch, and he doesn’t count.

Watch a sappy or cute animal video and I can’t even talk after. My voice gets husky and breaks. So what is wrong with me? I cry for puppies and love stories, but not for the horrors of real life. Maybe it’s because there is too much horror today and not enough puppy videos. Or maybe that is the only way to not succumb to the wretchedness of man and sink into a deep depression. Who knows maybe I’m just a heartless woman. I can ask Mitch, but he says he’s afraid of me. I don’t know why.

Whoa What a Ride!

Everybody has lived through one of those “I can’t believe I survived that” moments, in fact I’ve had a few. Sometimes I marvel at the fact I’m still here. Mitch and I have more than our share together. I think together we have done some really stupid things. Of course you don’t think about that while you’re in the midst of your adventure.

One of our many dumbest moves was years ago, when I was going through my Divemaster training. It was my first open water work weekend at Table Rock Lake, about four hours south of here. The plan was that I would ride down with another divemaster-in-training student on Friday, do my water work on Saturday and Mitch would buzz down after he closed the dive shop on Saturday evening. Then we would drive back together on Sunday.

Well no one told Mother Nature that we wanted a nice weekend, so instead we got cold wet rain on Saturday. Someone would say, “Well you’re in the water anyway, what’s the big deal?” When you get out of the chilly water you want to get dry and warm, but that didn’t happen for us all day. I couldn’t wait to get back to my hotel room and take a long hot shower. Mitch showed up soaked to the bone about midnight, after closing up shop. Of course he had ridden his motorcycle.

Sunday morning Mother Nature decided to help up out. The morning dawned sunny and much warmer. Training was more pleasant but we had a lot to catch up on that didn’t get done the day before. By the time we wrapped everything up, if was about two in the afternoon and we had to get back to KC in order to check in the dive gear that other students had checked out. It was decided that a friend would drag my gear back for me and I would ride back with Mitch on the back of the motorcycle.

Mitch trying to make up for lost time, was flying down a two lane highway at breakneck speeds, passing cars like a madman, doing around one hundred miles an hour. Me, I was so tired after being in the water for two days, fell asleep behind him. That’s not entirely true, I always fall asleep riding in a car, and riding back seat on a motorcycle isn’t much different, right? He only figured out that I was asleep when my helmet banged into the back of his helmet. Can you imagine the jarring effect of getting whacked on the back of your helmet when trying to maintain control of your motorcycle at a hundred miles an hour? Mitch jerked and banged his helmet back at me and yelled for me to wake up. Easier said than done, I tried, but kept dozing off whacking Mitch in the back of the head for the next three hours. I finally woke up about the time we hit Kansas City. Luckily we survived the ride mainly due to light traffic, Mitch’s skill and in spite of me.

We beat the other divers back and Mitch finally relaxed about an hour after we checked in all of the rented gear.

Four More Weeks!

Just four more weeks, twenty eight days, that’s how much longer I have to wear Frankenstein’s shoe. Woo Hoo! I went in for my five week follow up visit for my surgery on Friday. My doctor was amazed at my recovery speed. He said I was about twenty one days ahead of schedule. He had figured that I would be on crutches for a minimum of six weeks, but after two weeks he decided to try out me wearing a monster black walking cast, complete with industrial strength Velcro. This was in response to two falls in two days on my crutches. I am so graceful.

It only took four days for me to shed the crutches with the Franken foot. So that has been a huge success. My grace has not diminished, in fact the Franken foot has increased my wobbling because of its weight and cumbersome size. But at least no crutches when I’m wearing it. I did find a few challenges when wearing Frank, like walking on a slope. Can you imagine trying to walk down hill with Frank? Not easy, my leg doesn’t bend forward locked in the boot. And uphill is even harder. The first time I tried to go up an incline I couldn’t move. The boot refused to move. There I was standing in one spot looking pretty silly. Mitch had to come get me and help me up the hill. It’s like sidestepping up a hill with skis on. Not much fun.

My x-rays showed a fifteen degree movement of bone, which the doctor said was a lot. He said that for as extensive work as was done, he was really surprised at how well I was doing. His colleague that assisted in the surgery couldn’t believe how well I am doing either.

But I know the secret to my healing success. I have the best husband and friends that have taken care of me and have taken care of everything else so I could just lay around and heal. This will take me a lifetime to repay them for their love and support.

I see a pedicure and shoe shopping in my future.

Poetry Friday

Here is another attempt at poetry. I think I like writing poetry. I’m not sure I’m very good, but it is fun.

Lost Love

Tears of a broken heart
Flow abashed down cheeks
Trust lost in a moment
Takes a lifetime to regain.

Pain deep in the core
Of one’s being
Will always just below
Waiting to resurface.

Eyes forever show
A haunted gaze
Remembering love lost
Wishing for a reprieve.

I’m Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

It’s been almost four weeks since my surgery and according to my doctor, I’m healing nicely.  He said that I’m to continue doing what I’ve been doing.  Keep walking to a minimum, elevation and ice in the afternoon.  I still can’t make my normal ten hour work days, but I hang in there for eight hours.  I figure that’s pretty good, longer than some.

Bonus – I haven’t fallen for two weeks since I had a twofer in two days.  That’s what I’m worried about.  I know me too well.  Grace is not my middle name.  I can find more unique ways to cause injury to my body than the average person.

The dogs are getting more comfortable around my crutches too and that is a big cause for concern.  Both have decided that the gap between the crutch and my body offers a great pass through, kind of like walking under a ladder.  The only bad luck is mine, they won’t get hurt, but I will.  They don’t care, they’ve seen me fall down before and it’s a great source of entertainment for them.  I’ve seen them laughing at me.

The doctor has given me a monster sized black walking boot to try to minimize my use of the crutches.  It took me four days to be able to shed the crutches and just use the Frankenstein boot.  It’s big and clunky but now I can walk and carry a cup of coffee at the same time.  WooHoo!

Things are looking optimistic, I can maneuver around better, help Mitch more and have a lot more freedom.  So what’s the problem?  I know me well.  Now that I have more mobility, I know that it’s just a matter of time before I do something stupid, reach for something too high, turn too fast or get tripped up by the dogs and then it’s CRASH!  I’m not being a pessimist, I’m actually being a realist, I just know me too well.

If you don’t believe me, ask Mitch, he’s walking around watching my every move, car keys close at hand waiting for the trip to the emergency room.

The Long Weekend

If I survive the weekend, it will be a miracle.  Friday started off with great promise.  I had an appointment to get my stitches out, woo hoo!  That meant a real shower in my future.  One that doesn’t have my foot and lower leg triple bagged to stay dry.  A shower that I could luxuriate in letting hot water wash over me with a wonderfully scented shower gel that I could lather up all over.  Ah, heaven.

But no, that is not in my future, not for another week.  My doctor unwrapped my foot, poked at my toes and wiggled them around to show me that everything is healing nicely even though my foot was very swollen.  After the sharp intakes of air and scrunching my face into grotesque masks of pain, the doctor left to get some contraption he said would help bring down the swelling.  Mitch told me how proud he was of me.  I asked him what he meant and he said he was surprised I didn’t start swearing.  I said that it was close, but I controlled myself.  I didn’t want the doctor to run fleeing the room in fear for his life.

He came back in with a compression squeezer that I have no intention of putting on because it was terribly painful when he slipped it on and dragged it past my stitches.  The doctor then pulled at two of my stitches and explained that though the incision was not gaping, it was not healed enough to remove the rest of the stitches.  Did I mention how much it hurt to have the two stitches removed?  Anyway after all of the manipulation, foot squeezing and stitch pulling, I was ready to go home and lay down for a while.  Plus I was so bummed out that I didn’t get my stitches out.

After resting for a while, I got up to get something unimportant, lost my balance and fell backwards hitting the back of my skull on my nightstand.  God that hurt so bad.  Crying and grabbing the back of my head to feel for blood, luckily I didn’t split my skull open but there was a huge lump already.  I dragged myself over to where I could reach my cellphone and called Mitch who was walking the dogs, because I wasn’t sure how bad it was and I was scared.  It was this awful stabbing pain that felt like a thousand needles in the back of my head.  All I could think of was that I had fractured my skull.  Mitch rushed back, helped me off the floor and put me back in bed.  He examined my head and got ice packs to help bring down the large knot at the base of my skull.  I think I scared him as much as I scared me.  No blurred vision, no nausea and my pupils worked so we decided not to go to the emergency room.  Just rest and watch me.  Sorry not this time Aflac.

Saturday I woke up, surprise I didn’t die in my sleep.  I’m really glad for that.  We went to the grocery store, my first outing since other than work and the doctor’s office I’ve been pretty house bound.  The day was pleasant, clear skies and mild, Mitch was going to mow and weed eat the yard.  This is my job because when Mitch mows or weed eats, he mows and weed eats everything growing.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It’s in the way, so it has to go.  In order for that to not happen, Mitch set me up in a chair on the porch and with blue flags he walked around the yard pointing at various plants waiting for a mow or no mow sign from me.  If I gave the no mow sign he planted a blue flag next to it.  The grass was terribly tall, so mowing would take a while.

The dogs and I decided to go back in the house while Mitch slaved away.  I opened the kitchen door let the dogs in and started in myself.  I hopped in got the left crutch planted when the door closed on the right crutch throwing me off balance.  I started to fall forward and accidentally put weight on my left foot.  As soon as I realized what I was doing I lifted my foot which caused me to fall forward to my knees.  There is no way I could stand up from that position so I had to drag myself to the bathroom and pulled myself up on the toilet.  I am so graceful.

Please just let survive this weekend.