I think the most frustrating thing for me at work in the last couple of months is that at least once a week someone asks me:

“So are you back full time now?”

I may not be in the office every day, and I blew through all of my vacation time with doctors appointments and a little fun chemo time, but other than the 8 days for surgery & 3-5 days per chemo session, I’ve been working the whole time.  I’ve even been in the office a fair amount, not EVERY day because sometimes it’s just easier to keep plugging away at home and skip the commute.

To be fair, I have not made any announcements about my “return” like I did about my diagnosis.  But I’m not sure exactly what it is that I should say.  “Working my ass off, like I did before the whole cancer thing… and as much as I was physically able during.” I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again- what else was I supposed to have been doing? Sitting around feeling sorry for myself for the last 6 months?

Don’t be ridiculous! (Extra points if you can get the late 80’s pop culture reference without me providing a link…)

So anyway, the answer to your question, yes I’m working full time.  And I feel fine.

I still can’t say I feel great yet, since I’m still pretty sore.  I kept thinking that the tightness would go away, but so far, no dice. I saw my plastic surgeon yesterday, and she assures me that the permanent implants will be more comfortable. Only a couple more weeks until I find out.

This time the surgery will be out patient. They will go in through the scars I already have, and remove the tissue expander and put in the permanent implants, I go to recovery, and then I come home. No drains this time (woo hoo!) and I’ll evidently have a surgical bra I have to wear for a month.  Since I still feel naked with out a bra, I don’t see that as a problem.

After that there will be 1-2 more surgeries, each more minor, to get things balanced out and then to add in my nipples.  Yes, that seems as weird to type as it probably does to read.

On the hair front, it’s still coming in and getting thicker.  I was worried for a little while that it was going to be coarser, but now that it’s growing out, it feels like it will be pretty much like it was before, just more grey. 🙂

Today- see, not much difference

However- a month ago, definitely thinner

I love soundtracks. I think part of it is the idea that all life can have a soundtrack like it does in my head, but there’s also the intention of bringing in different musicians at just the right moment to add to the story in a way that dialogue, and even video, can’t do alone.

One of my favorites is “Sleepless in Seattle.” May have had something to do with the fact that it was a movie about Seattle when I was so very far from home at college in Boston. Or that I was in the process of falling in love with the man with whom I would spend the next 20+ years of my life (and counting).

But as I’ve had a chunk of one of the songs stuck in my head, I can’t help but think of how it is just wrong.

• Make someone happy
  Make just one someone happy
  And you, will be happy too

 
‘Cause Jimmy Durante is right, love is the real stuff in life to cling to, but you can’t MAKE someone happy.

I am a certified people pleaser. I spend at least a part of every single day doing things that I believe will please my boys.  They might be little, like tying my husband’s tie or letting the dog sleep in my lap or driving my son to school because the bus can be chaotic for him.  I spend much of the rest of the day figuring out how I can make my clients happy at work.

But I know that it’s not something that I can do myself.  I can not own someone else’s happiness, if they are not willing to find happiness for themselves.

It would have been pretty easy to wallow for the last 8 months.  It’s been one of the hardest times of my life.

But then where would I be?  No one likes to be around someone who has a dark cloud over them.  And I’ve never heard of the ability of negative thoughts in healing.

So I’ve had to find my own happy place. Yeah, as you’ve seen, sometimes it’s hard as hell. But the reward has been love from my friends and family, light in my soul and healing in my boobies.

Seems like a worth while deal to me!

*Steps off of soap box*

OK, so for how’s-it-going updates, things are going well in Ninja-land.

I took mom home to Oly this weekend, and she’s promised me that she won’t over do it, just because I’m not there to enforce it.

I got my first hair trim since October this week, just to even up the hairs that never fell out.

A LITTLE shorter, but at least it’s even

The rocks in my chest have less than one month left… not that I’m counting down or anything. 🙂

And other than that, I’ve been working my butt off for work, which is in large part, my happy place. After all, I was told last week that one of my execs was happy with his prep, which was in part, my job.

Makin’ people happy.

I’m sorry if you feel like I left you hanging last week.  Mom’s surgery went well, although afterwards (and she’ll hate me saying this) when she was in recovery, she looked old for the first time my brother and I could ever remember, which quite honestly, makes my heart hurt. 

So for a few days I was running back and forth to the hospital in Seattle, getting the bro down to the airport, back to the hospital.

Just after I dropped the kid off, I ran in to my uncle when he was leaving the hospital after a visit with mom.  He commented on my hair, and I know he’s seen it on Facebook, but it caught me off guard.  There are actually periods of time when I forget that I’ve been doing anything unusual for the past 6 months, or that I still don’t have quite as much hair as I was born with.  I expect to turn my head and have my pony tail swish behind me, since with no hair in my face, I’ve obviously put it up, right?

Anyway, mom came back to my house on Monday, and I’ve been working like a crazy woman for a big announcement this month.  Mom keeps thanking me for taking care of her, but all I’ve really done is make sure the dog doesn’t step on her and encourage her to eat and sleep.

So anyway, I haven’t had time to think much of anything profound.  I have noticed that there are times that I hit a wall that I think may be related to the Tamoxifen, since I realize I can no longer put together a coherent sentence… but it could also be just because I’ve been running around like my hair is on fire.

I do know that colleagues and clients are seeing me as stressed at the moment. Which freaks me out a little, since I’m usually pretty good at staying cool under pressure.  However, when this version of Trouble is your theme song for the week, it understandable to crack a little around the edges, right?  (Click the link, you know you want to, it’s only :25 sec)

And since I missed posting here (I DID post to Facebook) for Fuzzy Friday, here are the last two weeks with a month ago and a month before that for perspective. The most disturbing thing on the hair front lately is that I think I have a gray eyelash coming in.  Is that even possible?  I tried to wear mascara yesterday & the lashes are so short I don’t think it really worked.  Will give them a couple more weeks.

I’m really not a morning person.

So being at the hospital in Seattle (45 min from home) at 5:15a, especially after picking up my little brother at the airport at 11:30p last night, is REALLY not my idea of fun.

However, today is not about me.  Today is about mom.

She’s scheduled to go first for her surgery today.  The doc seems to have changed his plan, instead of just taking out half of her liver, he’s going to cut out one tumor, then totally remove the whole liver from her body and flip it over so that he can get to the tumor on the other side.

She says she’s not scared, and I’m refusing to be scared as well, but I would still appreciate if anyone out there reading this could send her some positive energy today.

I was raised Mormon, which always seems to surprise people who know me, as I haven’t been to church on a regular basis since my 26 year old brother was born.  I tend to be relatively agnostic, I have a hard time with blind faith in general, but more than that I’m a believer in Pascal’s Wager. You can read more on Wikipedia on that link, but the basic premise is that if you believe in God and there is not one, then you have lost little, but if you do not believe and there IS a God, you have a lot to lose.

My philosophy of religion is really pretty simple.  I don’t make deals with Him or anything, and I believe that how I live my life is more important than where I spend my Sundays. I’ve known people of all religions who are self-righteous about their belief system, but are really just not very nice people. I’m not 100% sure that there is a God, but if there is, I believe that he’s a God of love, and that being good to others is the most important way to honor Him.  And if there is nothing beyond this, I have lost nothing by trying my best to be kind.  In fact, I believe that there is a lot that I have gained.

But when my mom, who has much deeper faith than I, and is the one who shaped my spirituality the most, is fighting cancer for the THIRD TIME, it’s hard to believe in a higher power, since it really just doesn’t make sense.

All of that said, Mom does believe in God. No questions asked.

And I believe strongly in the power of positive energy.  No matter where it comes from, focusing on the best possible outcome (prepare for the worst, plan for the best) is what has gotten me through the last 39 years on this earth.

So for all of you who have been praying or sending me happy thoughts, or whatever it is YOU believe in, if you could do that for my mom today I would really appreciate it.  I joke about her needing to stick around for my son’s wedding (yes, he is 9, this means she will need to be around a LONG time) but she’d still like to be around if my 26 year old baby brother gets hitched.

And selfishly, I’m just not ready to be without my mom.

Mom is a big country music fan.  Me, not so much.  But last summer she played this song by Martina McBride for me, and I just couldn’t stop crying.  It hits too close to home for me to even listen to. And as another song she likes says, every storm runs out of rain.

I’ve been wearing a lot of lipstick lately.

It’s hard to feel like a girl with franken-boobies, tiny eyelashes, and hair that bald men are jealous of… but to the rest of the world, still looks pretty dang bald.

I don’t think I was really a girly-girl growing up, although I was never really a tomboy at all. But I rarely wore dresses, and never had any delusions of being a princess. But as I got older, I got more into makeup… as long as it didn’t take more than 5 min to put on. Same with my hair, it’s been at least longer than chin length for the last 25 years, but I’ve never really liked to take time to do much with it. If a style doesn’t work to air dry, it doesn’t work for me. I’ve almost always got a pedi, but until they came out with this gel stuff that lasts for weeks, I couldn’t have a manicure… I didn’t have the patience to not ruin it almost immediately.

But then, after I hit puberty, if anyone actually looked at me, there was no question that I was a woman. W-O-M-A-N. Really, even if I didn’t have the hair, mascara, nails, lip gloss, I still had cartoon boobs. All the way back into high school, I may not have been a K cup, but I was bustier than the average girl. But at my last fill, both the doctor and nurse didn’t realize I’m already at 960cc and done with my fills. I am a busty girl no more. Hell, I don’t even have nipples at the moment. Just straight scars.

And for the last several months, I’ve had relatively girly things wrapped around my head. Because it’s one of my favorite colors, most of my scarves have some pink in them. My Chemobeanie that is black has ruffles. Even my fedora has a pleated satin band, which makes it just that much girlier.

But now that I’m letting my hair be my scalp-cover, I again, feel a little less feminine.

MAC New York Apple lips, and more hair than scalp today.

As you can see, my eyebrows have come back enough that they no longer look like odd punctuation on my face. But my lashes are so short that I can’t wear mascara without looking bizarre. So I put on a little extra eyeliner, maybe more blush, and I PANICED when I realize I lost my favorite lipstick… MAC Lustering.

Not everything can be solved by dangly earrings and lipstick, but damn it, I’ll continue to try. I don’t want to forget what it feels like for a girl.

My son’s teacher wanted the children to write individual notes to each student.  So we made felt fortune cookies, and my 9 year old typed out the “fortunes” to each of his friends.

I’m pretty sure that my kid is the cutest thing ever… so I have to share with all of you.

Mrs. R- You’re the best 4^th grade teacher ever!

M- We’ve always got something to agree on. I’m glad you’re my friend!

B- I am fortunate to be in your class this year.

W- You are amazing in music class.

A- You’re the best speller in 4^th grade.

M- You have a great voice.

M- Your history knowledge will affect me forever.

B- You seem like you’d make a great friend. Let’s try that sometime.

H- You seem like the nicest and most polite student I’ve ever met.

G- You are a very fast runner.

J- You have such an unmistakable kindhearted smile.

G- You have a kind and loving face.

M-You make a great classroom representative.

S- You’re what makes everything interesting.

E- You’re an expert at everything.

S- Our friendship goes beyond scouts.

P- If there’s one friend I never forgot over the ages, it’s you.

T- We’re starting to get along now. Let’s keep that up.

T- I can always count on you to find jokes in my favorite TV shows that I missed.

J- Athletic or mental, we’re friends in everything.

P- We’re so close that we should become official friends.

D- You always have your smile on.

R- Throughout your big body, you always have a touch of kindness for that big smile of yours.

M- You have the prettiest face in the class.

N- It seems like we were good friends some time ago. I want to relive that memory.

C- You look a lot different than your sister. That’s what makes you interesting.

H- You have a very unique personality.

I go in every three months for a while, so I suppose that I shouldn’t expect much from my doctors visits, but this one was pretty uneventful.  I’d actually planned to write an update Tuesday, but there was so little new to say that I just wasn’t feeling it.

Here’s the basics.  I told them how I’m doing.  They said sounds great.  No tests or anything.  They didn’t even take blood, although I did go get my flu shot.  I’ll probably ask when they do any PET or CT scans or anything when I see him again in 3 months, just so that I know when we may do that.

My doctor says that the hot flashes that I’m starting to have mean that the Tamoxifen is working, which I suppose is encouraging.  I’ve been getting them more lately… and at more random times… but it’s still not anything that disrupts my life at this point.  For me, they feel a lot like I’m having a panic attack. I feel flushed, my face gets hot, and I start to feel a little out of breath.  At least I assume those are the hot flashes.  Otherwise I’ve added blushing to my previous panic attacks.

When I asked for more things to do to make sure this cancer crap doesn’t come back, “Keep up a healthy lifestyle, like getting enough sleep,” was the not, so helpful answer.  Especially when I’d just said that I’m having a hard time sleeping.  I don’t get night sweats or anything, I just can’t get to sleep, and then have a hard time staying asleep.  Pretty sure that’s because of a combo of stress and chest discomfort.

On the chest discomfort front, for some reason, for the last week or so it’s been worse and doesn’t seem to be going away.  Part of it is that I know I activate my pecs when I type, so pounding away on a keyboard all day exacerbates the issue, but I’ve added a new theory to the mix.

Pain = Gain

See, when they took out my cartoon boobies and put the water balloons that have become rocks in, they cut a lot of nerves.  So at first, there was a lot of numbness.  And the numbness is still there in a lot of ways, but the sharp, needle-like pains that I’ve been having?  They must mean that the nerves are doing something in there.

So I’ve decided that it’s a GOOD thing that they hurt, because that means the tissue is alive and healthy.  If they just felt dead, then they wouldn’t be regenerating right?

This theory may not be based on medical advice, but damn it, it’s what I’m going to stick with for the next 8 weeks or so.

Because without being able to find a bright side, I’m not sure if I’d make it.  And really, it’s not like NOT making it is an option.

This afternoon I see my doctor for the first time since I finished Chemo & started Tamoxifen, and I have a new obsession that I can’t get out of my head.

If my mom went two years cancer free and it’s back, other than take a little white pill every morning, what do I need to do to keep the cancer away?

As always, any cancer that comes back to my person should expect its ass to get kicked.  But I’ve started to wonder if my belief that cancer is a chapter in my life that is OVER is naïve, and burying my head in the sand?

I want it to be done, over, gone, and for so many women who I’ve talked to, that happens.  But when your mother is fighting cancer for the third time in your life, sometimes it’s hard to believe that I’ll be one of those women.  What if there’s some kind of cancer magnet in my DNA?

So today I will ask, “What’s up doc?” and I will not burst into song.  And despite my fears for both myself, and more so, my mom, I’m pretty sure I will not burst into tears.

Because yes, if it comes back, I will kick its ass again.  I know I can. But as my chest continues to ache, and my fingers occasionally go numb, and my toes are slightly numb all of the time, I really, really don’t WANT to have to.

I’ve been wanting to make a little slide show to show off my hair… but thought that at least this little gallery shows my progress. The sidekick thinks I’m crazy but I may go visit my stylist this weekend to even up the hairs that never fell out with the ones that are growing back. No one else notices how much they’re sticking out, but it bugs me.

I didn’t wear a scarf or hat at all this week unless I got cold when I went outside, and you can see in today’s picture that it’s starting to get long enough that it kind of parts when I push it in the right directions.

On the rocks-in-my-chest front, I finally got a prescription for my muscle relaxants today, which is HUGE because I’ve been miserable.  Today they hurt enough that I couldn’t focus, and when the muscle relaxants weren’t enough, I broke down and took an Oxy, since over the counter meds have not put a dent in the discomfort.

And on the Ninja Mom front, she’s having surgery in a couple of weeks. Sounds like they plan to remove the right lobe of her liver.  The surgeon says that it will not effect her quality of life at all, but I can’t help but worry that she’s going through a major surgery.  We argue often about who is worse off. I still say her stuff has been harder.

The thing that I can’t help thinking is that since hers came back, I should be prepared that my cancer could come back as well. She was stage 4, but fully resected, the first time, and my cancer had not metastasized at all, but it’s still a sobering thought.

Yes, if it DOES come back, I will just kick its ass again, but I’d really just rather not need to do that at all.

Because they’re not actually boobies.

My mom was up for another doctor’s appointment this week, and I realized as I started to walk into the loft to grab something topless and stopped myself, I really don’t think of them as boobs right now. They are more Franken-Boobies.

I’m about to go have another night of restless sleep.  I have always been a side and/or stomach sleeper, which was not necessarily EASY with cartoon boobs, but is almost impossible with the rocks.  I wake up because they hurt. And since when I shift, they still ache, I have a hard time getting back to sleep.

I’m hoping when I get a refill for my muscle relaxants, I will be able to add in a couple of my other meds and get a good night’s sleep. I took oxy one night last week so that I could sleep through the night all the way. Not something that I’m proud of, but it actually worked.  I don’t need to take the muscle relaxants all of the time, but I think that not taking them AT ALL for the last week and a half means that my chest has never fully relaxed.

When I am not relaxed, I start to feel like I’m wearing a bra of tension. It’s all tight and painful everywhere where I wear a bra, and a couple of days this week I had some problems with numbness radiating down my arm and into my fingers.

April 8th can’t come soon enough!

In happier news, we have replaced our 2002 Ford Escape that died 2 weeks ago with 231000 miles on it with a BEAUTIFUL new ruby red 2013 Escape. I’ve always wanted a red car, and although I love pink; shiny, metallic red is really my favorite color.  We’ve named her Ruby the Ninjamobile. I’d say it’s the little things, but considering the monthly payments, she’s not such a little thing. 🙂

And in even happier news, I’ve started to walk around the office, and even Bellevue Square and a local restaurant, all with just my fuzzy head.  I’m still self conscious, but as one colleague said, “It’s an actual hairstyle!” Not one that I am planning to keep, but it’s a start.

One word of warning though — I tend to subscribe to the fake-it-until-you-make-it school of confidence. So since I’m not feeling confident about my bald self, I may blow past people as I walk by.I’m not trying to be rude, just trying to concentrate on keeping my chin up, and shoulders back.

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I’ve got, I’m still, I’m still, your Ninja from the block!