A Right Angle

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Just a quick update today.

It was my first day home by myself, which would have been fine if I didn’t get a call that plastics wanted to see me ASAP. They heard from my surgical oncologist that I had some redness on Monday, and they wanted to check since I’ve got the tissue expanders in.

We weren’t sure how I was going to make that work (I’m not supposed to drive on my meds… And it doesn’t feel good) when a friend who happened to have the day off of work arrived at my front door. Not planned, it all just happened, but more proof to me that in many ways, things happen the way they are supposed to.

So after that, things went great. The nurse told me she was relieved when she saw how well I was healing, and when the resident checked me she not only agreed, she confirmed that I can now raise my arms to 90 degrees, or straight out from my shoulders.

After two weeks of keeping my elbows down, I think I may have overdone it a little, but I’m just amazingly happy to be able to reach the kitchen cabinets.

Some times it’s just the little things.

I’m alright

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Not much new at today’s appointment, I got a lot more words that don’t mean much to me yet… doing research tonight on things like Nuclear Pleomorphism (mine is 3 points and severe… whatever that means) which is evidently a part of the Nottingham Grade, which we knew is 3.

But other than getting the latest pathology report, and removing the steristrips and confirming that the sites are all healing OK, it was a pretty quick visit.

The things we already knew:

    • Stage One cancer means no Radiation
    • Grade Three means likely chemo — I’ll know more when I meet with the medical oncologist again in a couple of weeks
    • Lymph nodes were clear, and they appear to have gotten all of the margins (meaning the edges of the cancer)
    • I need to stop pushing myself too hard physically, and allow myself to heal

 

Little new things:

    • The surgical sites are healing well, although I need to stay on antibiotics since there is a little bit of skin irritation and since we saved so much skin, I don’t want it to then be ruined by infection
    • I can evidently be taking almost twice as much of my pain meds as I have been.  I don’t know that I’m going to take a lot more, but I’m going to try harder to make sure I stay ahead of the pain
    • I am good to start using my arms a LITTLE more liberally. My plastic surgeon is the one who said 45 degrees and I won’t meet with her again until at least next week, but my surgical oncologist said I can start to stretch my arms a little more, as long as I am very careful, and pay attention to what hurts
    • I’m clear to go back to work, at least from my computer at home, again, as tolerated by pain and fatigue (Yes, boss, my husband was a witness)

 

This week both my husband (a teacher) and son go back to school, and the little one will not feel any big changes, but the sidekick will be tempted to go into hiding.  You may have noticed, I’m not exactly comfortable being the center of attention.  If the BCN doesn’t like the limelight, the sidekick is violently allergic. He will be getting attention, and people will want to help him.  And all he will want to do is teach math.

So since I know some of my husband’s colleagues will be visiting us here in the near future, I close by reassuring everyone, I’m alright.

Now I just need to find the right line between sarcastic and truly, sincerely grateful for A LOT of thank you cards!

 

Boys

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I sent my boys (husband, 9-year-old, and father who is visiting from Arizona) out to go watch the Boeing Classic at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge today, and I think they’ll be out a while since I was in enough pain this morning  that I not only bit off each of their heads this morning, but started to cry. You can imagine how well THAT went over.

I think the pain can be attributed to two things that prove that I’m not actually super woman, and that I’m pushing too hard:

    1. Yesterday the boy had a pee-wee football jamboree at the local high school, which meant 4+ hours of either standing or sitting in bleachers. We have some awesome seats with back support, but still, more work than my body is willing to do.
    2. I’ve been trying to go off of the pain meds, and that’s just dumb. Oxy makes me itchy, like under my skin, which drives me nuts, but it also kills the pain. So I need to actually take it when I hurt. Aleve isn’t quite enough yet, when I try to do silly things like walk a lot, or sit somewhere other than a comfy, supportive, relaxing chair.

 

After my last post, a friend asked how the boys are handling this, and I think the best way to describe it has been that all of my family feels a little helpless. Everyone is a little on edge, patience is a little thin, and that makes it harder for everyone.

The sidekick, the man I’ve spent almost 20 years of my life with, has been indispensible. He has been patient, understanding, and has been there for absolutely anything I could ever think to need. However, he’s now spent 9 of the last 11 days with my parents in the house. Both my mom and dad came separately because they divorced more than 30 years ago, and have not spoken since our wedding 15 years ago, but that means more time of there being another person here who adds to the stress in their own way. I wanted them each to come so they could see that I’m OK and focus on their own lives but Mom didn’t want to freak in front of me, so she borrowed my rock of a husband to freak out on while he was working to not freak out himself. And Dad has been bored, and therefore grumpy. But I’m not entertaining, and we don’t really want him to do projects around the house this week while we’re in recovery mode. Add to this the fact that every year for the last 16, the sidekick has had his own mental meltdown as he gets ready to teach some high school math… which starts in a few short days, and I’m surprised that he’s still sticking around when I get bitchy because I hurt. Or at least that he hasn’t just started force-feeding me pain meds when he starts to see it coming. Again, admitting out loud, every time he’s told me I should take something, he’s been right.

This means that his patience is even thinner for my little man. Sully’s been very patient, and we’ve been very open with him exactly what is going on, but still, it’s hard to remember that his sharp little elbows can hurt mom if he’s not careful when hugging. And after spending the whole summer home with dad, he’s also losing some patience. He’s seen me layed up, when my appendix burst last year I was in pain for 8 days until we got it out of there, and then for another week while I healed, but I’ve never seemed OK, but not been able to make him a sandwich. So although he gets what’s going on intellectually (I’ve even shown him pictures online of things like tissue expanders, so he knows what those are… he hasn’t asked to see the actual former breast area yet… not sure what I’d say about that) I think it’s still been emotionally tough for him. He’s the least control freak in the household, but he still doesn’t like being this out of control. So he takes it out on us by being distracted at anytime he’s not staring at his DS. I don’t think it’s malicious, but that doesn’t make it not then frustrate his parents. I think I mentioned said parents’ short fuses? Sigh.

The boy who always lives with me and seems to be taking this the best is the little hairy one. He simply has attached himself to me, and if at all possible, is in my lap, including in the leather chair he’s not normally welcome to sit in… But even a dog can be thrown off by the odd vibes in the house. Tuesday when we got ready to go to the genetic counselor’s office, he started barking at me as I got dressed, and then tried to sneak into the car with us, like he knew that I was going to over do it. And when we got home, he said, “I told you so,” by staying away from the sidekick, when all he wanted to do is feed him.  We even dropped a piece of his food on the floor and he RAN AWAY FROM THE FOOD. Not normal dog behavior.

So to make a SUPER long answer short, but boys are doing as okay as anyone could ever expect, and way better than I deserve. Lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Asses being kicked, names being taken

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Pathology came back today, and the bottom line is that all of the news was as good as I actually expected. I’ll get a full written report in a few days and will share interesting updates if there are any, but here are the highlights for now:

    • Right breast totally clear and healthy
    • Two lymph nodes removed from next to Lefty, totally clear and healthy
    • The three masses in lefty were that, distinct masses
    • The largest is under 2 cm

 

So what does this mean?

    • Size of mass & clear nodes means that my cancer is stage 1
    • This also means that I don’t need radiation
      • That would have meant 6 more weeks of treatment and it would have limited my reconstruction options… meaning that I wouldn’t be able to get the perky silicon boobs that I had my eye on
    • HOWEVER, I am still going to need to do hormone suppression (something like tamoxifen) for 5 years- this is the part where I go into menopause and then maybe come back out of it… if I don’t find out that I’m a big enough risk for ovarian cancer that I should just get a hysterectomy. That will be a conversation after the genetic testing comes back.
    • And finally,  I’m likely going to still have chemo so that they can ninja any little cells that are hiding, since I have 50 years of future survival to plan for, in which I’d prefer to be cancer-free. 🙂

 

The other kind of interesting bit is that she apologized about it taking so long to get back to us… but evidently they couldn’t find the two smaller lumps in Lefty once she was in the lab, so my doc had to tell them to go back and look again (so that we could figure out if we had one lump or three) and she actually referred to them as being like finding a needle in a haystack.

Or a 1 cm and a less than 1 cm lump in 2.1 kg of breast tissue. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but both of them together are right around 8.5 lbs. I have officially lost more than a Fenway and a half (Fenway is my cockapoo, and I’ve decided to measure my weighloss in his ideal weight 16 lbs)… and my boobs alone were more than half a Fenway.  How about THOSE puppies!

I’m still healing at least as well as my doctor expects, and getting a little bit better every day.  Hoping to be back and working from home part-time next week, but I’ve promised not to over-do, since as you can likely tell from this week’s posts, I still get stupid sometimes.

But today, I’m stupid happy!

As You Wish!

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This afternoon I was sitting between my husband and father just after my oxy had kicked in, and as I fought to keep my eyes open, I was reminded of this scene in the “Princess Bride” where Westley has been mostly dead all day, and his head rocks back and forth as they plan to storm the castle. It’s pretty lame to me that yesterday was a “big day” when all I did was go to a lame Dr’s appointment and sit in a camp chair alongside a pee-wee football practice.  It’s not acceptable that I have to pay for such a little jaunt by being sore & tired all day today.

Appointment is really overstating by calling it a doctor’s appointment, I was meeting with a Genetic Counselor, although there were a couple of docs in the room too. But the first 20 min was going over the family history that I provided on the phone when I made the appointment. The next 30 min were explaining why I would want the testing done, which is why I thought I’d made the appointment in the 1st place. The rest of the time was all about giving a tiny bit of blood, which by the way now will always have to come from my right arm because of the lymph node biopsy on my left.

It’s just a little annoying, since it felt like i could have signed something last week and had them take the blood while I was out like the people who I donated my breast tissue to, especially since I’ve already signed up for a second genetic test for research.  I figure if I can help research, why on earth would I not help?  Stepping off of soap box again.

Another point of confusion is all of the love, flowers, and food flowing into this house. We’ve decided that the reason that the plastic surgeon seemed to not think I would be able to lose more weight between now and reconstruction is because of the crazy amount of food we keep getting. The wonderful, sweet people who have been helping to feed my family are sending enough food to feed an army… every night. I’ve also got three flower arrangements, a dozen magazines, books, stuffed and plastic ninjas, and a month of housecleaning service. And that doesn’t even start on all of my wonderful ninjas who are sending love & prayers.

Between the being spoiled rotten by my boys, mom, dad and friends, I’m starting to feel like a big lump. As a friend put it today, the ability to not only accept, but ask for help can be rather humbling.

I’m planning to allow the spoiling thing for approximately one more week. Until then, as you wish!

 

Uncomfortably Numb Pt. 2

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So for the record, I really thought there was another ’90s song, not Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” It could have been what I was thinking of, but I’m neither a Floyd fan, nor comfortable with the numbness, so it wasn’t entirely what I was going for. 🙂

Today I went with my boys to pick up school supplies at Target. Not entirely a mistake, but I hereby admit publicly that my husband was right, and we should have taken my meds with us since I ran out while we were out, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The sensation that I didn’t do a very good job describing yesterday is very odd.  I have these strange lumps of skin where my breasts used to be that the nerves are basically dead.  So where I’m used to having these crazy cartoon breasts, next to no feeling. Occasional tingling, but that’s it, and I understand that’s how it’s likely to stay.  However, two layers lower, under the skin and my pec muscles, there’s an odd sensation these mainly deflated water balloons which are my tissue expanders.  And most of the pain that I have is from them pushing at the bottom of the implants when I lean forward or allow gravity to put too much stress on where I believe the AlloDerm patch is holding them in place.  So I’m spending extra time on my back, or am more comfortable when I’m holding the girls up with my hands, which looks silly.  But when I’m in enough pain or around the house, I just don’t care.

The other hard thing being home is that I’m a side or tummy sleeper, and with the implants & the drains under each arm, I’ve got to keep myself propped oddly in bed, which doesn’t help me or the sidekick sleep.

I think I did an OK job of camouflage today, I put on a cardigan to cover my cami that holds the icky drains, the poly fill fake boobs so my shirt wasn’t totally empty and a scarf around my neck to help give a little extra volume, but I still felt like people were looking at me funny, and when I look in the mirror, I still have a hard time recognizing that I’m looking at me.  It’s funny, because my face hasn’t changed a bit, and perhaps it has something to do with the fact I haven’t bothered to put on makeup in almost a week, but it’s strange. I just don’t know who that lady is in the mirror, but I also don’t feel motivated to fix that yet.  I’ve decided to blame the drugs,  but we’ll have to see if the feeling passes, because I don’t really like it.

I’m really not comfortable with numb.

Uncomfortably Numb

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I swore there was a song with that title, but I couldn’t find it… then again, I’m at the point in my oxy when I’m usually asleep, so my skillz may be a little slow at the moment.

I’m still doing OK- have a feeling I’ll be majorly bored by the time I go back to work, but I’m also randomly falling asleep mid-day so it wouldn’t be fair to anyone.

I took a lovely husband-assisited shower this afternoon, didn’t feel QUITE as good as a post-triathlon shower, but close.  And if I could reach my arms up another few degrees to wash my own hair, it might even be the best shower ever.  It will also be much nice when I no longer need to wear the icky drain things.  Sigh.

The strangest thing at the moment are the numb little lumps where my breasts used to be. We did a “skin sparing” mastectomy, meaning we saved some skin for future reconstruction, but when they scooped out the bad stuff, the nerves were cut off. So I have these odd, empty, wrinkly lumps… and I’m not sure if the numbness is perminant. My shoulders have been tight where I had a nerve blocker… the boob equivalent of an epidural, but it’s getting better every day.

My team at work has been awesome, sending food every night for my family to have dinner, and the love & support is still pouring in. I have a tendency to try and do things by myself, but I have a whole TEAM of ninjas to back me up now that my doc did the slicey part.

I’ll say it over & over, but I’m a lucky lady!

Boobless in Snoqualmie

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Will keep this short & sweet because I’m likely going to get in trouble with the sidekick for posting, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows that I’m home and resting as comfortably as I’m going to be able to on the hottest day of the year.

Less than 12 hours after surgery, they let me come home, which is lovely. I have a whole pile of meds to take, and I can’t raise both arms more that 45 degrees (ANNOYING) but my pain has been relatively tolerable. Actually, while I was in the hospital my hand with the IVs hurt woerse than anything else.

I credit one thing for this, and that is all of my ninjas out there sending the love, thoughts and prayers. That combined with the Angels I know are looking down on me like Kathi, Tricia & my grandparents, and I can’t go wrong!

Thank you, thank you, thank you all!

I love you my ninjas!

What do you call a ninja sidekick??

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Whatever you call them, that’s me. The BCN is currently recovering but I know many of the followers would want a more thorough update. When this post is proofread, you will know Ange is back to 50%. I will try to be ninja brief.

Both boobies are now official property of UW medical research. Surgery started late, but went as planned. All three lumps were removed, although they are waiting to call them one lump or three. (Great, now Def Leopard is stuck in my head again). More pathology later in the week. The main lump area, you know the one responsible for starting this whole mess, was the size they predicted.

Sentinal lymph nodes came back initially as clean. While the quick test isn’t always accurate for detecting cancer, the surgeon did mention the looked healthy. They will do a complete lab for those as well in the next few days. If that pathology is clean too, it is a sign that the cancer did not likely spread out of the breast.

Ange is in a standard hospital room as of midnight when we left her in good hands. I think the recovery nurse summed it up best when she said my wife just got hit with a mac truck, normal has lost meaning for the next few days. She was still a little loopy, and probably will be for another 36 hours. She will likely be home late Saturday, but we will find out more tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for all there support. We have a really long road to go, but we got the best start we could hope for today.

I would suggest you share this soon with interested others before Ange gets all her sense back and this post ends up like a drunken Kardasian tweet and magically disappears over night.

I’d say goodnight, but it’s morning. (J)

This Is It!

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Again, more like the first countdown, this is likely the first it, but 24 hours from now I’ll be out of surgery and resting uncomfortably in my hospital room for the night.

First and foremost, thank you all for the major outpouring of love and support.  I do feel so lucky and loved, and I really do appreciate it, even if I get all embarrassed and don’t know how to show it.  Every time I take those INFP whatever the heck they are tests, I come down right on the line between introverted & extroverted.  I’ve decided I’m the world’s shyest extrovert.  I can overshare when I’m in my comfort zone (aka, my couch & a laptop or people I know well 1:1) and if I need to make a presentation where I know what I’m talking about, I could talk to a gazillion people at once, as long as what I feel like people are paying attention is the topic, and not me.

Ninjas work in the shadows, not in the middle of a crowd of wonderful people wearing pink and seated under a bouquet of “boobloons.”

I work with crazy people… who I love… and who make me boobloons.

But when you are a Ninja, you must accept and soak in the love. Even when it might be easier not to.

OK- here’s how my day will look tomorrow:

7:30a- Check in to hospital

8:30a- Contrast and lymph mapping so they can tell which are the sentinel nodes to take out on Lefty.

Approx. 12:45p- 6-8 hour bilateral mastectomy, including insertion of tissue expanders.

Spend night in the Univ. of Washington Medical Center.

It will be at least Friday before I can update unless someone lets me have my phone in the down time tomorrow, but please know that I do appreciate all of the love, happy thoughts and prayers.  And I’m sending them all right back at you, even if I’m dorky about it.