I know that’s not an “acceptable” term, but I never promised to be PC.  It’s now been two and a half weeks that I’ve been running around in this thing (yes, I have two, so they do get washed) but I just feel like it’s an undergarment all of the time.

I also know that I’ve got friends who have been curious about how my upper body looks now… and even people who come visit are very careful to meet my eyes at all times.  If only that was the case with the world when I had the cartoon boobs!

The Wife-Beater Cami, complete with drain pockets

The bulges you see in the front (below the bulges that are my once and future boobs) are the pockets for the icky drain things. Was down to 35 on one side yesterday, but since I have to be at 30 for 2 days to get them out, I may end up waiting until Friday when I see plastics….

Anyway, as you can see, not attractive or flattering, but there’s what I’m wearing these days. I CAN take it off & pin the drains to something else but this is more comfortable.

So to update this weekend, pretty dull.  I did go grocery shopping on Sunday, which meant I was sore all day on Monday so I sat around like a big lump. As a review, here are things that evidently use my pecs and therefore make me sore:

• Typing
• Driving
• Laughing
• Lifting things
• Leaning forward for more than a few min at a time
• Sitting in bleachers for more than a couple of hours, even with neato seats with backs

On the plus side, I’m feeling better enough that I’m only taking Oxy when things are at their worst, or when I really, really can’t sleep.  When I don’t have the pins & needles feeling, and I’m low on my buddy Robaxin, it almost feels like I’m wearing an underwire.  Under my skin. I’ll be asking plastics if this is normal when I see them Friday.

Still no updates on Chemo or any other next steps… I’m about to call and see if I can get an appointment, since I don’t feel like I can plan the next several months of my life until I meet with my medical oncologist.

Need to stop typing and save the rest of my upright finger movement for work now, but if I don’t update, often, it’s not that I’m not well, it’s that I’m saving the PC time.

I’m a little out of it this AM- I woke up in more pain than I’ve had for a while, and when the Robaxin (muscle relaxant) and a couple of Aleve didn’t cut it, I’ve added in the Oxy again.  I HATE how it makes me feel (see As You Wish) but it makes me stop hurting, which is evidently what I need to do.

Usually, I don’t like to take a lot of pain meds for things that are muscular.  When it comes to a headache, all bets are off, but I figure muscle pain means that I’ve pushed something too far, so I try not to take too much.

In this case, I’ve been staying on the Robaxin religiously because it’s what helps the most. When I let it go, my pecs can twitch, and they ache and burn. Since I’ve broadened my range of motion I’ve been more sore, but I know that the only way to keep a range of motion.  It’s kind of a use it or lose it thing.  I also think that spending as much time as I have with my hands on a keyboard doesn’t help.  Even when I keep my wrists still, typing means small movements in my pecs… which makes them more angry.  The feeling is like I have a big, really tight bandage around my chest from my solar plexus to just under my armpits.

When the Robaxin wears off, it just feels tight and achy, but when it’s really bad, like today, it’s a pins & needles feeling, like my pecs have fallen asleep and just woke up.  I’ve had that feeling since the first time I woke up around 3a until I took Oxy at 10:30a… and even then it’s not really gone, just duller.

Tonight I’m going to try to take the kid to practice again.  It’s a lot of sitting, but if I get cold at all, then my body tenses up and it hurts. A lot.

And that doesn’t even go into the discomfort from having the JP Drains in… I was hoping to get them out so the drain sites could start healing over the Labor Day weekend, but that was not to be… I’m still putting out 45 cc/day and I have to be down to 30 cc for two days before they go. The drain sites are getting less sore, but they are still gross, and still keep me from laying on my side… and from cuddling with my boys. That’s the worst part of the last two weeks. I can’t wait until they are OUT.  (Here’s a link on how they work, although I have a separate site where they are attached instead of disturbing the healing on my main surgical site when they finally do come out.)

I do have one other update- next Friday I get to go back to plastics and they will start filling the deflated water balloons (aka tissue expanders) in my chest that are causing the pec pain.  I’m looking forward to getting back to having something other than wrinkly lumps on my chest… after 38 years as an hourglass, it’s hard to suddenly be a pear.  I just hope the fabu boobs that are supposed to be at the end of this road are worth it!

With that, I’m going to check in with my boss and maybe take a little break from this PC thing.

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!

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!

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!